Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reaffirmed on Thursday Turkey's intention to reopen its consulates in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Mosul that had earlier been closed due to security concerns.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2018) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reaffirmed on Thursday Turkey's intention to reopen its consulates in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Mosul that had earlier been closed due to security concerns.
In August, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Ankara's plans to reopen the consulates in Basra and Mosul.
"We are reopening our Basra and Mosul consulates that we previously had to close due to security reasons," Cavusoglu told reporters after the meeting with Iraqi President Barham Salih in Baghdad, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.
The minister also expressed Turkey's readiness to cooperate with Saudi Arabia on the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has been missing since October 2 when he visited the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
The situation in Iraq was significantly destabilized in 2014, when the Islamic State (IS) terror group, outlawed in Russia, seized huge territories in northwestern Iraq including Mosul. Since then the Iraqi troops managed to recapture the seized territories.
