ANKARA
Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jafari has said his country has never requested military support from any country, including Turkey.
Al-Jafari's remarks came during a conference held Thursday in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where he was asked whether Iraq had requested any support from Turkey in terms of training and equipment.
"We have never requested any foreign military aid from Turkey or from any other country in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, that is for sure," Al-Jafari said. "Only the Iraqi Armed Forces and the peshmerga will take this responsibility and fight on our land."
However, Jafari also added that training, equipment and intelligence support will always be welcomed.
Recently, Albania's Council of Ministers sent an additional shipment of the Albanian Armed Forces' excess weaponry and ammunition to Iraq.
The U.K. will also send military personnel to Iraq to train Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIL, the country's defense secretary said.
However, the U.K. will not commit combat troops to Iraq.
Turkey recently allowed about 160 Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to pass through Turkey into the Syrian town of Kobani to aid in the fight against ISIL.
An international U.S-led coalition is currently carrying out airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
ISIL has captured large swathes of land in both countries and declared what it calls a cross-border Islamic "caliphate," killing thousands of people and displacing millions in the process.
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