Nouri al-Malikiâ

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is set to pay a two-day visit to Iraq on Nov. 20, a week after the Iraqi foreign minister held talks in Ankara as part of efforts to mend ruined ties between the two capitals.

A senior Iraqi official has expressed the new Iraqi government’s intention to demand the money collected in a Turkish bank over the Kurdistan regional government’s unilateral sale of oil through Turkey that sparked a row between Ankara and Baghdad during Nouri al-Maliki’s rule.

Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ibrahim al-Jaafari was in Ankara for the last two days. This has been the first high level official visit since the relations between Turkey and Iraq froze during Nouri al-Maliki’s Prime Ministry. Hence, his message was quite critical.

Iraq’s new Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari is set to visit Turkey next week in a bid to restore bilateral relations that deteriorated during Nouri al-Maliki’s term of Prime Ministry.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s insistence on not leaving office has produced the current political crisis in the country, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, adding that there was a recent coup attempt when forces reportedly surrounded President Fuad Masum’s compound.

As threats mount to the security of both sides, the leaders of Turkey and Iraq’s Kurdistan region gathered in Ankara on July 14, with the agenda dominated by the search for a solution to the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) financial crisis due to escalating political and security threats.

Since June 10, the day when jihadist terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized control of Mosul, the situation in the field has been getting worse every day, with the worrying prospect of a large scale civil war between Iraq’s two prominent sects, Shiites vs. Sunnis.

Mosul Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, who fled from the city after it was seized by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, has called for logistical help and suggested that air strikes could be conducted in “uninhabited areas” against the jihadist group’s bases, in an exclusive interview with daily Radikal.