BAGHDAD, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Iraq on Thursday demanded that the United Nations Security Council convene an emergency session to discuss the presence of Turkish troops on Iraqi territories near Mosul.

Iraq's permanent representative to the UN has delivered "a formal request to the current president of the Security Council, Vitaly Churkin, demanding that the council convene an emergency session to discuss the incursion and interference of the Turkey side," the Iraqi foreign ministry said in a statement.

The request demanded that the session's agenda include discussion of a decision made earlier in the week by the Turkish parliament that extended the mandate of Turkish forces in northern Iraq for one more year.

The Iraqi move came amid mounting tension between Baghdad and Ankara over the presence of Turkish troops near Mosul and the latest decision by the Turkish parliament to extend mandate of their troops inside Iraq.

The Turkish government said that withdrawing Turkish troops from Iraq is out of the question and that the Turkish soldiers are in Iraq as part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) group.

Hundreds of Turkish soldiers have been deployed since 2015 in Bashiqa camp, some 30 km northeast of Mosul.

Ankara said that Turkish soldiers were sent to Bashiqa at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to train local forces.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, is the second largest city in Iraq. It has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.

Iraq has urged the international community to increase their support for its war against IS and other terrorist groups and in its efforts to liberate Mosul from IS militants.