Turkiye agrees to gradual handover of Bashiqa base to Iraq

Turkiye and Iraq have agreed to a gradual transfer of Ankara’s military base in Bashiqa to Baghdad, according to a statement released by the Iraqi prime minister’s office. The announcement followed a meeting on Wednesday between Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “Within this framework, they reached an agreement on fully establishing state authority in Sinjar and ending the presence of outlawed foreign armed elements,” Iraq’s prime minister’s office announced, in an apparent reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has maintained a presence in the mountainous Sinjar region of northern Iraq.