Iraq rejected Turkey’s denial of responsibility for the deadly artillery attack on an Iraqi tourist resort as families of the victims buried their loved ones on Thursday.
“The Iraqi state's narrative confirms that Ankara is behind the attack, which is not the first and comes in a series of continuous attacks,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmad Al Sahhaf said on Thursday.
“Turkey's denial of responsibility is a sick joke that Iraqi diplomacy will not accept.”
Turkey rejected accusations that its military fired four shells at Zakho, a town in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, on Wednesday. Nine Iraqis were killed, including two children, while 23 others were wounded.
“According to the information we received from the Turkish Armed Forces, we did not carry out any attack against civilians,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday.
He pledged that Turkey would “co-operate with the Iraqi authorities after the treacherous attack that we believe was carried out by terrorist groups”.
Turkey said its troops were in Iraq only to counter Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters, who it accuses of carrying out cross-border attacks on Turkish troops.
Iraq's National Security Council on Wednesday demanded that Turkey withdraw its troops from northern Iraq after holding an emergency session chaired by Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi.
Turkey has launched military operations and air raids on PKK strongholds in the mountains of northern Iraq for years.
It has established several military posts in the Kurdistan region since the 1990s without the consent of the federal government in Baghdad, including a military base in the town of Bashiqa after the takeover of Mosul by ISIS extremists in 2014.
Ankara said its troops were deployed in co-ordination with authorities in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
Mr Al Sahhaf disputed Turkey's justifications for its military presence in northern Iraq.
“What Turkey says, that there is an old agreement that allows it to send its troops to Iraqi territories, is incorrect as there is only a record of a meeting that Ankara held with the previous regime and the record, however, obliges it to request the permission of the Iraqi government and that the incursion does not exceed five kilometres, and they did not abide by the same record,” he said.
Since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, successive Iraqi governments have accused the Turkish army of carrying out ground attacks up to 60km within Iraq’s territory in the north.
Civilian casualties in northern Iraq have been reported and documented in several attacks in recent years.
There is no official tally of the number of Turkish troops in Iraq but some Kurdish and Iraqi media outlets estimate there are about 250.
Turkey has urged the Iraqi government and people not to listen to what it called PKK propaganda.
More than words
New protests over the attack broke out after the funerals of the victims on Thursday.
The coffins of the dead, draped in Iraqi national flags and festooned with flowers, were flown to Baghdad from Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and Kurdish Regional President Nechirvan Barzani led the pallbearers carrying the smallest of the coffins, a child's, on to the military plane in Erbil.
An honour guard carried the coffins at a ceremony attended by Mr Al Kadhimi on the tarmac of Baghdad's airport.
Protesters outside the Turkish embassy in Baghdad called on the Iraqi government to do more than issue statements condemning the attack.
They brandished portraits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that called him a “terrorist” and trampled on Turkish flags.
There were calls on Iraqi social media accounts to boycott Turkish products.
Bilateral trade in 2021 stood at $19.5 billion. Iraq became Turkey's fifth-largest export market in 2021, according to the website of the Turkish foreign ministry.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Initial investment: pre-seed of $800,000
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Investors: Tiger Global, Beco Capital, Prosus Ventures, Y Combinator, Global Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel, Endure Capital, 4DX Ventures, Plus VC, Rabacap and MSA Capital
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Keep it fun and engaging
Stuart Ritchie, director of wealth advice at AES International, says children cannot learn something overnight, so it helps to have a fun routine that keeps them engaged and interested.
“I explain to my daughter that the money I draw from an ATM or the money on my bank card doesn’t just magically appear – it’s money I have earned from my job. I show her how this works by giving her little chores around the house so she can earn pocket money,” says Mr Ritchie.
His daughter is allowed to spend half of her pocket money, while the other half goes into a bank account. When this money hits a certain milestone, Mr Ritchie rewards his daughter with a small lump sum.
He also recommends books that teach the importance of money management for children, such as The Squirrel Manifesto by Ric Edelman and Jean Edelman.
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