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BAGHDAD, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi parliament rejected the Turkish parliament's decision on Tuesday to extend the mandate of Turkish forces for one more year near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, considering the Turkish troops occupying forces.
The majority of the 189 legislators who attended the regular 328-member Iraqi parliament session passed the decision.
"We reject the decision of the Turkish parliament which permits incursion of Turkish troops into Iraqi territories. The Iraqi government must consider Turkish troops as hostile occupying forces," said the parliament.
The parliament further asserted that the Iraqi government must take all legal and diplomatic measures to salvage Iraq's sovereignty, including reconsidering trade and economic ties with Turkey.
In addition, the parliament rejected and condemned the Turkish president's recent comments over Ankara's willingness to join in the upcoming battle to flush out Islamic State (IS) militants from their last major stronghold in Mosul.
"The Iraqi Council of Representatives (Parliament) rejects and condemns Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statement, and we find such statements divisive for Iraqi people," added the parliament.
The parliament's decision comes just one day after Iraq's Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning Erdogan's comments regarding the battle to liberate Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
Such comments "represent a blatant interference in Iraqi internal affairs and violate the principles of bilateral relations and good neighborliness," the spokesperson of the foreign ministry said in the online statement.
Ankara has ignored Baghdad's repeated calls for the withdrawal of Turkish troops deployed in Iraq, he added.
Iraq's government and parliament stances follow the comments by Erdogan during a parliamentary session on Saturday where Turkish legislators voted to extend the mandate of Turkish forces in Syria and Iraq for another year.
The mandate, which was issued to the Turkish armed forces in 2014, was last extended for one year in September 2015.
Erdogan said Mosul can be freed from IS militants, however he warned that Ankara must be involved in any operation and included in the decision-making process.
"Turkey cannot be left off the table. The others don't have such a border (with Iraq)," he said. "They may want us to stay as spectators but that decision is also going to be made here."
The deployment of hundreds of Turkish troops into northern Iraq led to a dispute between Turkey and Iraq as Baghdad repeatedly said that Turkish forces entered Iraq without the knowledge of the Iraqi government, which views their presence as a violation of the country's sovereignty.
However, the Turkish government said that withdrawing Turkish troops from Iraq is out of the question and that Turkish soldiers in Iraq are part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces fighting the IS group.
