Iraqi PM wants Turkey to pull out troops

Iraq's Prime Minister Haidar Al Abadi attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

Iraq's prime minister appealed on Friday to Turkey to pull its troops out of Iraqi territory and instead provide training and equipment to fight the Daesh group, which he and US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted is losing ground.
Leaders at the World Economic Forum are focusing on Friday on concerns about global security, with Syria's civil war and other geopolitical troubles weighing on an already wobbly global economy.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi and other officials at the forum in Davos, Switzerland, trying to drum up additional support for the anti-Daesh military campaign.
Abadi met with several officials in Davos, calling for more help.
"We in Iraq want very good neighbourly relations with Turkey, we hope Turkey will help us to fight Daesh," Abadi said. "Daesh is killing our own citizens, occupying our own cities. We have 4 million internal refugees because of that, and Turkey should help us with that. And I appeal to the Turkish government to help us, and withdraw their forces."
He said Ankara hasn't responded to his government's question about why Turkish troops are in Iraq, adding: "We have to have an answer."
Turkey has had troops near the Daesh-controlled city of Mosul in northern Iraq since 2014. The arrival of additional troops last month sparked an uproar, and Ankara subsequently halted new deployments.
Turkey has not been clear about the exact number of troops it has deployed in Iraq, but the issue was one of several that US Vice-President Joe Biden, in Istanbul on Friday, was expected to bring up in Saturday meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
"I don't know what their aim is. Is it an expansionist plot to control part of Ninevah?" Abadi said, referring to Mosul's region. "I hope not. ... If they truly want to fight against Daesh, well, they can train our forces. We have asked them to do that. They can supply us with equipment and weapons. We have asked for that. They didn't send it."
He said Daesh is "on the retreat."
Kerry made similar comments in a Davos speech moments later.
"Each day, we learn more about what works and each day, we are intensifying the pressure on Daesh. We've known from the moment we formed our international coalition that success would take years," he said. "But in the end, mark my words, Daesh will be defeated - and the progress we have already made toward that end is undeniable."
The US military has said the group has lost ground, yet it still holds key power centres in both Iraq and Syria - and put up a major fight for the city of Ramadi, which Iraqi forces are still trying to clear.
Carter, at his meeting with Abadi in Davos, emphasised the need for training local police forces, according to Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. Carter pledged the United States would intensify the fight against Daesh, and noted tough fighting ahead despite the success of Iraqi forces in Ramadi, west of Baghdad.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met on Friday with Abadi to discuss Nato plans to start training Iraqi officers in the coming weeks, likely in neighbouring Jordan. That would mark the first time that the Atlantic alliance has carried out such a training mission for Iraq since the end of another training mission there in 2011, said Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu.
Leaders meeting at Davos are also looking at how to deal with the refugee crisis prompted by Syria's civil war.

• MENA