Iraq made a formal protest to Turkey's envoy in Baghdad on Friday after the Turkish foreign minister made a surprise visit to an oil-rich Iraqi city claimed by both the central government and the country's autonomous Kurdistan region.
The episode, the latest in a series of diplomatic spats and ###-for-tat summonings of envoys between the neighboring countries, is likely to worsen already strained relations.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had travelled to Kirkuk on Thursday after visiting the regional president in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
But Iraq's foreign ministry accused Turkey of violating its constitution with the visit, saying that Davutoğlu had neither asked for nor obtained permission to enter Kirkuk.
A junior minister at Iraq's foreign ministry had handed Turkey's charge d'affaires a protest letter on Friday, a strongly-worded statement from the foreign ministry said.
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Relations between Iraq, close to Shi'ite Iran, and Sunni Muslim regional power Turkey, were tested after US troops pulled out of Iraq last year and the government immediately tried to arrest one of its Sunni vice presidents.
He fled first to Kurdistan and later to Ankara, where he was given refuge.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan then traded public insults. ...
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