Eigen RadarGeopolitics
Archive
Analysis

Bashiqa's handover to Baghdad has no published troop date

Turkiye and Iraq agreed a gradual handover of the Bashiqa base near Mosul. Ali al-Zaidi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met at the UN General Assembly in New York. The National reported the same Bashiqa-Zelikan camp and the same missing timetable.

Geopolitics··Night
Iraqi and Turkish flags at a sunlit camp gate, with soldiers walking away down a dusty road between low concrete buildings.

A gradual handover, no troop date

Iraq's prime minister's office said that after Wednesday's meeting in New York between Ali al-Zaidi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish forces will gradually hand the Bashiqa base, northeast of Mosul, to the Iraqi federal government. The same statement tied that step to fully establishing state authority in Sinjar and ending the presence of outlawed foreign armed elements. The statement also recorded a pledge to expand trade and investment and to accelerate the Development Road project. Al Jazeera wrote that Turkey established the base in December 2015, under an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government, to train local forces fighting ISIL, and that the deployment of up to 600 Turkish soldiers drew Baghdad's objection as a breach of sovereignty. It read the office's phrase outlawed foreign armed elements as an apparent reference to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Sinjar is a district in northern Iraq. The National reported a gradual handover of the Bashiqa-Zelikan camp near Mosul, agreed in New York by Ali Al Zaidi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. No troop timetable was announced. Ankara deployed troops near Mosul in 2015. The page is dated 24 September.[1], [2]

Sinjar stays attached to the deal

Both pages place the meeting in New York, at the UN General Assembly, between Ali al-Zaidi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both keep the handover gradual. The National adds that the camp dates from 2015 and that no timetable for Turkish troops was announced. The reader has a base near Mosul, a gradual transfer to Baghdad, and no published day for the last soldier to leave. The 2015 deployment is the origin, not a claim that the camp empties this week.[1], [2]

No handover date has been announced

Neither account names the day the camp changes hands. The National says the mechanism and the timetable were agreed and then withholds the dates. Al Jazeera keeps the same gradual wording and the Sinjar measures beside it. A reader who wants a departure day will not find one on either page. The magnitude is one camp, Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, opened in 2015, now set for a gradual transfer. The Development Road is a second project on the National page, not a second base. The handover itself remains undated.[1], [2]

References

  1. News sourceAl JazeeraErdogan agrees a gradual handover of the Bashiqa base in Iraq↩1↩2↩3
  2. News sourceThe NationalTurkey agrees to hand the Bashiqa camp to Iraq↩1↩2↩3
Chip wars and the supply chainRussia-Ukraine warEnergy transition and climate

More analysis from this desk

View all Brief analyses from the Geopolitics desk →