(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Kurdish Peshmerga forces will not enter Mosul, Masoud Barzani, president of northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said Thursday, pledging to cooperate with Iraqi forces now fighting to retake the city from ISIS.
Barzani’s remarks came during a meeting in Erbil with Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the National Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in Iraq’s parliament.
At the meeting, Barzani asserted that his Peshmerga forces would continue to coordinate with the Iraqi army, especially in the Al-Kuwer area northeast of ISIS-held Mosul.
"We are now in control of most areas [of the region]," Barzani said. "After today, ISIS will not pose a threat."
The Kurdish leader went on to assert that "only [Iraqi] counter-terrorism forces" would enter Mosul once members of the terrorist group were driven from the city.
Last week, the Iraqi army launched a wide-ranging offensive to retake Mosul, ISIS last stronghold in northern Iraq.
ISIS captured Mosul -- Iraq’s second largest city -- in mid-2014 before overrunning additional territory in the country’s northern and western regions.
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27 October 2016 - 15:54
News ID: 788186
Kurdish Peshmerga forces will not enter Mosul, Masoud Barzani, president of northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said Thursday, pledging to cooperate with Iraqi forces now fighting to retake the city from ISIS.
