Turkey will not hand over Iraq's fugitive vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, who faces a death sentence against him in Baghdad.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a press conference in Ankara on Tuesday that Hashemi can remain in Turkey as long as he wishes.
Hashemi, a Sunni, was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on Sunday in a ruling likely to further stoke sectarian tension in Iraq.
He fled the country earlier this year after authorities accused him of running a death squad -- charges Hashemi has denounced as politically motivated.
In Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government has been in a political deadlock with the country's Sunni and Kurdish blocs.
Hashemi has accused Maliki of conducting a political witch-hunt against Sunni opponents, but the government says his was a judicial case.
