Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkish troops had been stationed at a military base in northern Iraq at the request of Iraq's leader since 2014, but Iraq had not made it an issue until this week, al-Jazeera reported on Wednesday.
"We were asked by Prime Minister al-Abadi to help train soldiers and, at his request, we set up a training camp in Bashiqa in 2014," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Qatar-based channel.
Erdogan said Abadi "did not say a word until just now" because of developments in the region.
On Saturday, Iraq's Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to demand that Turkey immediately withdraw hundreds of troops deployed in recent days to northern Iraq, near the Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul.