Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated that Turkish troops will remain in Iraq, overturning a foreign ministry pledge to the contrary.
Erdogan spoke at an event in Istanbul Sunday. He repeated his argument that the soldiers were not deployed as combat troops, and Turkey is "determined" to continue its training of Kurdish and Arab forces.
Ankara sent hundreds of troops to the Bashiqa camp in northern Iraq earlier this month, saying the forces were part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State. Iraqi government slammed the move, and has brought the issue to the UN Security Council to push for a complete withdrawal.
On December 19, Turkish foreign ministry said Turkey was going to remove its troops from Bashiqa.