US defense secretary in Iraq visit amid Ankara-Baghdad tensions
December 16, 2015, 9:38 am

Carter arrived in Baghdad to assess the campaign against ISIL in Iraq. He called on Turkey to do more; Ankara says it is in Nineveh province to train Sunni anti-ISIL tribesmen, such as the ones above, but Baghdad has called for all Turkish forces to leave Iraq [Xinhua]

Carter was earlier in Turkey where he pressed the leadership there to come up with new tactics to defeat the Islamic State.

“We want Turkish forces to join in the air and on the ground as appropriate,” he told local media.

In Iraq, local military commanders have announced some success in their campaign to recapture Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, which was seized by Islamic State fighters in May.

Previous attempts to liberate the city have failed.

Government-owned Iraqi media said that Carter would discuss the campaign with Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi.

In the meantime, the Pentagon reports that US-led coalition air raids killed 350 ISIL fighters in Ramadi.

But the campaign is still likely to be long and bloody.

ISIL forces have blown up key bridges which Iraqi and Shia militia forces would have used to gain a foothold in Ramadi.

On Monday, Iraqi military sources said a series of suicide car bomb attacks killed 35 soldiers outside Ramadi.

Tensions with Turkey, US

Carter’s visit also comes amid heightened tensions between Baghdad and Ankara over the presence of several hundred Turkish soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles, outside ISIL-held Mosul in the north of the country.

On Wednesday, Iraqi officials accused Turkey of trying to carve out a foothold in northern Iraq under the guise of training Kurdish Autonomous region peshmerga troops against ISIL.

Turkey has in the past 20 years made numerous incursions into northern Iraq to pursue fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who say they are fighting to create a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey.

Turkey, and several Western countries, have classified the PKK a terrorist organization.

But the Iraqi government says the Turkish military presence in Bahshiqa, just north of ISIL-occupied Mosul, has little to do with the PKK and more to do with carving out a Turkish entity in northern Iraq.

Turkey denies the charges. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Ankara was trying to protect Iraq’s territorial integrity more than anyone else.

Turkey withdrew some of its military contingent on Tuesday, but Baghdad officials say they want a full withdrawal.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies