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Kurds won’t enter Mosul City
Bet they will if Iraqi forces need reinforcements.[ARA News] Erbil – Lieutenant General Jabbar Yawar, Secretary-General of the KRG Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs and the Spokesperson of the Kurdistan Region’s armed forces, told ARA News that after liberating Bashiqa District from ISIS, the Kurdish forces will not go to Mosul city. “According to the agreement with Baghdad, the Peshmerga’s forces will create a line [of defence], while the Iraqi army will advance further. We will not go to the centre of Mosul,” General Yawar said. “Only Iraqi army, federal police and local police will ever the city.” Kurdish Peshmerga forces have surrounded the town of Bashiqa, and today took the village of Fadiliye, saving civilians from the grip of ISIS. However, the city itself has not been taken yet. Civilians in the Fadiliye Village welcomed the Peshmerga forces with white flags, and described them as “liberating forces”. After Bashiqa, Peshmerga forces will only assist Iraqi forces as part of the Mosul operation, although in the future Peshmerga forces will also play a role in liberating southern Sinjar and Hawija, in northern Iraq, from ISIS. The Peshmerga spokesperson also denied reports that Turkey was part of the Mosul operation. “No, there are no relations; Turkey is not part of the planned operations. We have no relations with Turkey,” General Yawar told ARA News in an exclusive interview on Thursday. “The Ministry of Peshmerga has no relations with Turkey; we only have agreement with the [US-led] coalition and the Iraqi government [regarding the ongoing battle for Mosul],” he stressed. Nevertheless, ARA News sources confirm that Turkey-backed Sunni Arab fighters are part of the Mosul operation, but not the Turkish army itself. Furthermore, the Peshmerga spokesperson said that the Hawija operation “has not started yet”, although there has been an agreement to launch it earlier. “Battle for Hawija needs a lot of forces, that’s why the operation is a bit late, but it will happen,” he concluded. Posted by: badanov 2016-10-28 |
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