Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkish troops had been stationed at a military base in northern Iraq at the request of Iraq's leader since 2014, but Iraq had not made it an issue until this week, al-Jazeera reported on Wednesday.<br />"We were asked by Prime Minister al-Abadi to help train soldiers and, at his request, we set up a training camp in Bashiqa in 2014," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Qatar-based channel.<br />Erdogan said Abadi "did not say a word until just now" because of developments in the region.<br />On Saturday, Iraq's Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to demand that Turkey immediately withdraw hundreds of troops deployed in recent days to northern Iraq, near the Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul.
