Turkey’s deployment of troops to Iraq, act of war: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Mike Harris, editor of Veterans Today in Oregon, to discuss the remarks made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said Turkish troops recently deployed to Iraq will not be leaving the Arab country for the time being.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What does it mean that Turkey says it is not going to withdraw its troops out of Iraq and that is against the request of the Iraqi government?

Harris: Well clearly Turkey is not respecting the sovereignty of their neighbors. To put armed force into a neighboring country is an act of war; it is an act of aggression. Not only are they being aggressive towards the Iraqis but they also have aggressive moves towards the Syrians as well. They are taking aggressive actions there also.

Press TV: So what repercussions could this have for Turkey?

Harris: Well I would advocate for everyone to have a global boycott of anything Turkish - Turkish products, Turkish agriculture, do not do business with them, just cut them off because this is unacceptable behavior.

If I was the prime minister of Baghdad I would be meeting with my Syrian counterpart and trying to develop a regional strategy to deal with the Turkish aggression because if you stand alone it is difficult but if you stand with your neighbors who are also having the same set of issues with the Turks, then it becomes a little easier to have a unified front against their blatant aggression.

Press TV: Well we know that the Iraqi government has brought the issue up to NATO. How is NATO going to respond given that Turkey is a NATO member?  

Harris: Well in my opinion Turkey should be expelled from NATO for their rogue criminal behavior … but the real key lies in solidarity with the neighboring states. In other words Iraq, Turkey, Iran, they all need to coalesce and have mutual defense agreements whereby any aggression that comes into their area that they all come to each other's defense.

Press TV: And we are talking about an incursion here, we are talking about the violation of one country’s sovereignty given that the Iraqi government says the Turkish troops are not welcome in the country and it has asked for immediate withdrawal of the troops. How is that possible and what are the Turks doing in northern Iraq anyway if it is not through the consensus of the Iraqi government?

Harris: Well let’s look what Turkey has done to Syria. They have been the ones supporting ISIS (Daesh), they have been the ones who have been smuggling the stolen oil out of there. Turkey is acting as a rogue criminal state and if they are not going to respect the sovereignty of Iraq, maybe Iraq should do what Syria did and reach out to the Russians and ask the Russians for additional help because they have been extremely effective in stopping Turkey’s incursions into Syrian airspace. Maybe the Iraqis should take a similar approach to what the Syrians did. 

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