ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani told him that the Kurds do not have any territorial ambitions in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province.
“The president of the Kurdistan Region told me that the Kurds have no ambitions in Nineveh province,” Abadi said, after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, according to Al Sumaria TV on Wednesday.
Abadi made these remarks a week after he told Kurdistan’s Peshmerga to stop advancing towards Mosul, after their latest offensive this month saw them push ISIS back several more kilometers, and not to participate in the battle for the city itself.
Peshmerga commander Sheikh Jaafar Mustafa dismissed Abadi’s warning at the time, arguing that Iraq will be unable to liberate Mosul without coordinating with Erbil. “The Peshmerga surrounds and controls many areas and supply routes on the eastern and western sides of Mosul city,” he explained.
Abadi also slammed Ankara on Tuesday for violating Iraq’s sovereignty in Nineveh.
“Turkish troops are on our territory without invitation from the Iraqi government and we call again on them to get out,” he added, referring to Turkish troops based at the Bashiqa base in Nineveh, where they have been training Peshmerga and Sunni Arab militiamen to fight ISIS.
Turkey was permitted to deploy trainers to that base. However, its deployment of additional combat troops to protect the base last December resulted in a diplomatic incident with Baghdad, which demanded their immediate withdrawal.
