Turkey will begin taking steps to hand over its Bashiqa military base in northern Iraq to the federal government in Baghdad, the two countries said on Sunday, moving ahead with an agreement linked to Iraqi efforts to establish full control over Sinjar and end the presence there of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The announcement concerns a base near Mosul that has been a source of tension between the neighbours since Turkish troops were deployed there in 2015, and it does not announce a withdrawal of all Turkish forces from Iraq.

Source: Turkish Minute

In a statement from the office of the Iraqi Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, quoted by the Iraqi prime minister's office, Baghdad said: “The Turkish side announces that it will begin taking the necessary steps on its part toward the gradual handover of the Bashiqa–Zilkan camp to the Iraqi federal government.” The pledge was made at a meeting of the Iraqi-Turkish high-level committee on outstanding bilateral issues, according to the statement. Ankara gave no timetable, and the statement did not say how many Turkish troops remain at the base.

Source: Iraqi prime minister's office statement, via The Insight International

2015Year Turkish troops deployed to the Bashiqa camp near Mosul
Sep 23Date Erdogan and Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi agreed the phased transfer in New York
Nov 8Date of the joint announcement that the handover steps will begin
4,165Yazidi YBS fighters who, in late October, were reported set to integrate into Iraq's security apparatus in Sinjar

A joint committee for Sinjar

The two governments also agreed to activate a Joint Security Coordination Committee, in a joint statement released by the Turkish presidency's communications directorate on November 8. The committee is to carry out joint verification and oversight of the process that has begun in Sinjar to end the presence of armed groups, as Baghdad works to fully extend the authority of the Iraqi state in the district, in western Nineveh. Sinjar is the historic homeland of much of Iraq's Yazidi minority.

The announcement builds on the understanding reached on September 23, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi agreed on the phased transfer of the camp during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Reporting on the Sunday statement noted one earlier sign of movement on the ground: Mohammed al-Kakaei, who heads the security committee of the Nineveh Provincial Council, told Shafaq News that Turkish troops and vehicles had partially left the Zilkan camp, and that Nineveh police had begun taking over checkpoints in the province. Those were the official's statements, reported by Shafaq News; no independent count of the remaining Turkish presence has been published.

Source: Shafaq News via Hatha Alyoum

Eleven years of argument over one camp

Turkey set up the base near Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, in 2015, as a mission to train Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State group (ISIL). Successive Iraqi governments have called its continued presence a breach of Iraqi sovereignty and demanded a withdrawal, while Ankara has pointed to the PKK's presence in northern Iraq as its reason for staying. The PKK battled Ankara for over four decades; it has since agreed to dissolve itself, withdrawing from military positions in the Kurdistan Region and holding a ceremonial disarmament in Sulaimani in July 2025, according to Rudaw's account of Sunday's announcement.

Source: Rudaw via EuropeSays

Sinjar is where the two files meet. In late October, the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) — an all-Yazidi force affiliated with the PKK — announced that 4,165 of its fighters would integrate into the Iraqi security apparatus, Rudaw reported. Baghdad's own disarmament timetable has slipped: Zaidi's government set September 30 as a deadline for armed groups to hand over their weapons, then shifted to a phased process extending into 2027 after several Iran-aligned groups rejected the deadline — and the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Iraqi territory has been one of those groups' stated demands in return for disarming.

What the announcement does not do

The statement did not address Turkey's other military positions in the Kurdistan Region and in Nineveh, and Defence Minister Yasar Guler said last month that the status of Turkish forces in Iraq and Syria would be reconsidered when regional and border security conditions were met — a reminder, carried in Sunday's reporting, that the Bashiqa agreement does not settle the future of Ankara's other deployments. What happens next is the committee's work: joint verification in Sinjar, and the step-by-step transfer of the camp itself, on a timetable neither side has yet published.

What is solid

  • Turkey and Iraq said on November 8 that Ankara will begin the steps on its side toward the gradual handover of the Bashiqa-Zilkan camp to Iraq's federal government (Iraqi Commander-in-Chief's office statement; Turkish presidency communications directorate joint statement).
  • The move implements the September 23 Erdogan-Zaidi understanding, and the two sides agreed to activate a Joint Security Coordination Committee for verification and oversight in Sinjar (both statements).
  • No timetable was given, and the announcement does not cover Turkey's other military positions in northern Iraq (Turkish Minute; The Insight International).

What is only claimed

  • Whether Turkish troops have already partially left Zilkan rests on a Nineveh provincial official's statement to Shafaq News; no independent count of the remaining presence has been published.
  • Xinhua reported that a phased withdrawal would begin this month and the base would be fully transferred to Iraqi forces; the joint statement itself sets no such timetable, so the start date and completion remain unconfirmed by the two governments.
  • Baghdad and Ankara describe the camp's 2015 deployment differently — a training mission against ISIL in Ankara's account, a sovereignty breach in Baghdad's — and that dispute is not resolved by Sunday's statement.