Joe Biden

Wiping back tears as he remembered children killed in a mass shooting, President Barack Obama on Jan. 5 ordered stricter gun rules that he can impose without Congress and urged American voters to reject pro-gun candidates.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Dec. 19 that the withdrawal of Turkish troops from the Bashiqa training camp near Mosul would "continue."

In the same statement it said the problem arose between the Turkish and Iraqi governments over the Turkish troops there because of a communications mistake regarding the deployment of reinforcements to the camp earlier in the month.

Turkey has announced its decision to continue to remove its troops from the Bashiqa camp near Mosul after nearly 10 days of tension with the Iraqi government and upon insistent appeals from Washington, which included a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an.
 

From Moscow, the news for Turkey was not good. Russian President Vladimir Putin chided Turkey and President Tayyip Erdo?an in particular during a Dec.

The White House has called on Turkey to withdraw unauthorized forces from Iraqi territory while also condemning the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attack on a Sunni military camp in the Bashiqa region of northern Iraq, in which four Turkish soldiers were wounded. 

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has welcomed the partial withdrawal of Turkish troops from a camp in northern Iraq and urged Turkey to continue trying to cooperate with Baghdad during a phone call with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter urged Turkey on Dec. 15 to do more to help destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), adding that Turkey's most significant contribution would be sealing its border with Syria. 

In a move to diffuse tension with Baghdad over the deployment of Turkish troops to northern Iraq's Bashiqa camp, Turkey has been working on a formula to bring the training camp under the status of the coalition forces, sources told Hürriyet Daily News.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an on Dec. 10 said it was "out of the question for the moment" that Turkish troops would withdraw from Iraq, after Baghdad accused Ankara of sending them in without permission.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is not one to mince words. Just a day after the downing of the Su-24 jet, he said that Russia had “serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe that it is planned provocation” by Turkey.