The decision to schedule the meeting was made on Thursday during talks between Kurdish President Masoud Barzani and a US delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Falah Mustafa, the Kurdish minister of foreign affairs who attended the meeting, told Rudaw.
The state department official was accompanied by the US President’s special envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS, Brett McGurk, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Joseph Pennington.
“We agreed to have a trilateral meeting next week between the Kurdistan Region, the United States, and Iraq to discuss the details so that each party knows their duties and responsibilities,” Mustafa said.
The make-up of the forces participating in the Mosul offensive has been publicly disputed in recent months. There have been repeated calls from different parties to exclude one group or another.
Many representatives of the people of Mosul and Nineveh province, largely Sunni Arab and minority groups including Christians and Yezidis, have demanded that Shiite militias should not participate, citing fears of sectarian violence.
The Shiite militias, however, have insisted they will participate but have stated that the Peshmerga should not be a part of the forces that enter Mosul.
The US delegation that met with Barzani on Thursday “emphasized that the Mosul operation is not possible without the Peshmerga participation,” Mustafa said.
He added that Barzani again raised the importance of having a political plan in place for after the liberation, as well as the military plan.
Regarding recent improvements in relations between Erbil and Baghdad, “The deputy secretary state said ‘Abadi is happy with the status of his relations with Mr. President of the Kurdistan Region,” Mustafa relayed, referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
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