At the dawn of the seventeenth of this month, Haider Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister announced the start of military operations for the liberation of Mosul from the grip of the organization Daesh, and the fact that the battle is taking place under Iraqi, regional and international circumstances of highly polarization , reflected clearly about the lack of understanding among the states concerned with what is going on for the battle that have the results on the ground and at the negotiating table, especially with the refusal of Iraqi government and its insistence not to allow to the Turkish troops to participate in the battle of Mosul.
A few days after the start of the battle of Mosul , the official Turkish position was announced of it , as confirmed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during his speech to the governors’ meeting at the presidential complex, at the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Wednesday, that the presence of his country’s troops in Ba’shiqah area near Mosul, not to wave for war nor a violation to the sovereignty of Iraq, and that he does not bear any bad intention , stressing that his forces must be found in the place, “where we must fight for our independence and our future, and now the place is Mosul.” Erdogan addressing the Iraqi government that it would be unable to find a friend like Turkey “and will lose the friend in the event of harming it ” stressing that Turkey will be in the field and at the negotiating table regarding Mosul . And added that Turkey will not wait until the risk of “terrorist” organizations to knock its doors, so “we’ll now the prosecution of these organizations, and hit them wherever they exist to terminate its activities and eliminate them. ”
And added ” earlier , our state was stretching for millions of square kilometers and the coup failed to harm the independence of the country,” and he said, “that if we can not to solve problems in Mosul, there won’t be positive results for the fight against terrorism.” He also said: “We will stay active in the case of Mosul on the ground and at the negotiating table with the Baghdad government “and added:” it will not be a place for the organization of Daesh and Gulen group and the PKK on the geography of the world. ” He added: “Everyone knows the power of Turkey in solving all the problems and the fight against terrorism and attack it wherever it is .” He also said: “We have no ambitions in Iraq, and we have more than 300 kilometer of common boundary and we are concerned to defend it .” He also noted: “The operation of Shield of Euphrates that we have undertaken without the permission of any one and we will defend Iraqis and Syrians, without exception.”
For his part, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kortolmos, the spokesman for the Turkish government, said no development occurred that disturbs his country during the liberation of Mosul from the grip of Daesh during the ongoing process till today . this comes in a statement made by Kortolmos, on Thursday, during a meeting with a number of journalists of Antalya state south of the country . and the government spokesman added : “the operation is nearing its fourth day, and even today there has been no development to disturb Turkey, and we hope that lasts as such , and liberated Mosul from Daesh as soon as possible, and form a system that allows for the people of Mosul to govern themselves on their own. ” He explained that Turkey “is fully aware of the important site of Mosul, which is the key city to the balances in the Middle East after this stage.” He reiterated that the Mosul is for its people . He stressed that the changing of demographics of civilian does not contribute to peace in the region, and pointed to the need to form a strike force of Mosul’s residents in the process. He added: “If we say that we shall clear Mosul from Daash, and the settlement of the popular crowd there afterwards , for example,or PYD or other terrorist organizations, no doubt that this will never contribute to the achievement of peace in Iraq and the region.”
He pointed out that the potential of displacement of hundreds of thousands from Mosul to Turkey, is one of the reasons why Turkey pays great importance to the city. He said that the worst scenario can be taken place in Mosul is the probability of occurrence of practices of sectarian or ethnic cleansing in it . He added that the other bad scenario is the exposure of Turkish soldiers in a camp Ba’shiqah to attacks. He added that “the control of the popular crowd on Mosul could constitute the beginning of operations of a sectarian cleansing , and the other thing is the concentration of forces” PYD (Syrian Kurdish democratic union party) “Syrian arm of the terrorist Organization of PKK in the region, posing a threat to the Turkmen and Arabs there, and Turkey is ready for such scenarios.” He also said that “Mosul is not for the Americans or the Iranians or the Russians. It is for the people of Mosul and for the Iraqi people, and it will remain for its people who live there for years, and this is a red line for Turkey.”To sum up the Turkish official position that it warns of handing over of Mosul to the militias of popular crowd , saying that those militia-like organization of Daesh, and its control of the city will create a “big sectarian war.” Turkish strategic dimension is present in this battle, Turkey fears that to turn the battle after the expulsion of Daesh in Sinjar and Tal Afar in the sense that all Sunnis against all Shiites. Turkey has recently realized the importance of the Iranian regime’s control over some Iraqi cities that make up the land corridor to link its allies in the region and among this important cities in Iraq are the cites of Sinjar and Tal Afar in Mosul.the regime of IrN n the Syrin regime are supporting the PKK in Sinjar and supporting the popular crowd as well. Turkey fears the use of the Labour party to put pressure on it, and the entering of the popular crowd to the city of Mosul .Turkey also is afraid that the popular crowd will expel the Sunni Turkmen and keep the Shiite Turkmen in Tal Afar, and to encircle its ally , Massoud Barazani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region by supporting the Shiite Turkmen in Tal Afar and linking them to the Tozachrmatu and Taza , adjacent to Kirkuk. The battle of Mosul for Turkey is an extension of operations of shield of Ephrates in norther Syria to counter any threat to Turkish national security whether it was national threat in Sinjar or sectarian threat in Tal Afar.
This land corridor “Imperial Shiite” for the Iranian regime had previously been referred to by the Rawabet center for Research and Strategic Studies in many previous articles, which were based on information that was obtained by the center and not just adoption of political analyzes. These articles first: “the motives and goals of the Iranian field transformation in Iraq” , this article was published on the Center’s web site at the date of October 20 – 2015, and the second was entitled: “Tehran issues commands and Baghdad carry out” which was published on February 2 2016 m, and the third came under the title: “battle of Mosul and fears the absence of clear understanding,” which was published on 3 of the current October .
These articles have referred to the land corridor which the Iranian regime sought -and still – seeks to create, starting from the Iran-Iraq border to the Iraqi-Syrian border, which is as follows:
As the Iranian regime aims of this corridor to the harassment of Kurdistan Regional Government allied with Turkey and weaken the Sunni community in Iraq and control over Kurdish areas in neighboring countries of it “Syria, Iraq and Turkey,” and to ensure the land route to link the Iranian regime to its allies in the Arab environment , Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon and through them ensures access to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
Now, after demanding of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey on Wednesday, to the reviewing of the Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24 ,, 1923, which identified the limits the landmarks of contemporary Turkish state . After getting rid of the organization Daesh in Mosul of Iraq and Al-Riqa of Syria , is the history will repeat itself by the return of Mosul as the Turkish state?
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies