Turkey trains 230 Iraqi Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq

Turkish Armed Forces has trained 230 Iraqi Kurdish fighters of autonomous administration in northern Iraq and will continue the training as long as needed, local Hurriyet Daily News reported on Tuesday.

The Turkish Special Forces, known as the "maroon berets," have provided a "subsidiary" training program for the Iraqi Kurdish fighters since a month ago in a military camp operated by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, Turkish foreign ministry officials, who asked not to be named, were quoted as saying.

The training program is part of cooperation between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey in fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants.

Turkey will also train up to 2,000 moderate Syrian opposition groups per year, in cooperation with the United States.

Ankara and Washington have not finalized discussions on the training and equipment program of Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, which will take place in Central Anatolian Kirsehir province of Turkey.

By Ruchi Singh

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com