On the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, Iraq and Turkey moved to close a chapter that has long strained the bonds of neighborly sovereignty: Ankara agreed to gradually relinquish its Bashiqa military base near Mosul, a facility Baghdad never fully accepted as legitimate. Established in 2015 under a regional arrangement that bypassed the central government, the base became a symbol of the contested space between security necessity and sovereign dignity. The accord, which also targets PKK presence in Sinjar and envisions deeper economic integration, suggests that the 2025 peace pr