BAGHDAD, Iraq – US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter arrived on an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Sunday to discuss the anti-ISIS offensive in Mosul, which Iraqi leaders say will be liberated by year’s end, despite slow progress against the militants.
Carter will meet the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad and President Masoud Barzani in Erbil to discuss plans to push out ISIS militants from Iraq, the Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.
In Erbil, Peshmerga spokesperson Halgurd Hikmat told Rudaw that Carter was expected in Erbil later Sunday.
Carter’s arrival in Baghdad comes just a day after Abadi announced that Turkey has pledged to pull out its troops from the Iraqi Bashiqa Camp, where their presence has been a source of growing tensions for weeks.
So far, there has been no confirmation of such a pledge from Turkey.
Tensions between Baghdad and Turkey were at their highest when Carter last visited both countries in October, trying unsuccessfully to mediate a diplomatic solution, just less than a week into the Mosul offensive that began Oct. 17.
Carter will also meet personally with the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Security Forces, who are engaged in the “tough fight for the city,” Cook added in reference to the city of Mosul, which still remains largely under ISIS control.
Carter also will meet with US forces who are helping the Iraqi and Kurdish forces with airstrikes and artillery, as well logistics in the war against ISIS in multiple parts of Iraq.
Carter said last Monday that the liberation of Mosul is possible before the end of the Obama administration on Jan. 20. But to date, Iraqi forces have not even entered into the city’s western districts and are still fighting for control of neighborhoods on the east bank of the Tigris River that bisects Mosul.
By their own admission, Iraqi forces say they are still about 3.5 kilometers from the Tigris River, which they would have to cross for an advance to Mosul’s western and main districts.
