Iraqi PM says Peshmerga withdrawal deal 'unchanged'

By Arif Yusuf and Ali Jawad

BAGHDAD

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s office said on Thursday an agreement on the withdrawal of Iraqi Kurdish forces from liberated areas of Mosul remained “steady and unchanged”.

The Iraqi federal government statement came in reply to Wednesday’s remarks by Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) president, Masoud Barzani, in which he said Peshmerga forces would not withdraw from territories taken from Daesh in Nineveh province.

“Keeping these territories comes under an agreement reached with both the Iraqi government and the United States,” the statement added.

Reacting to Barzani, Baghdad’s statement said the deal between the federal government and the KRG on the liberation of Nineveh province was unchanged since Peshmerga forces were fighting alongside federal military troops against Daesh terror.

“We point out that this agreement includes an explicit clause stating that Peshmerga withdraw to their previous stations soon after the liberation of Nineveh,” read the statement.

Secretary-General of the KRG’s Ministry of Peshmerga, Lieutenant General Jabar Yawar, said Thursday the issue of the Peshmerga presence in northern Nineveh province was political, and solutions will be put to it in agreements between Baghdad and Erbil, the KRG capital.

Peshmerga were assigned to carry out a military mission to liberate areas from Daesh in Mosul, and they achieved the task, added Yawar, who also predicted Baghdad and Erbil would reach a deal on the issue.

On July 22, Iraq’s defense minister published details of a memorandum of understanding signed between the U.S. and KRG which included the withdrawal of Peshmerga forces “from the areas that will be liberated in Iraqi northern Nineveh province”.

The memorandum of understanding was signed on July 18 in the presence of the KRG’S interior minister, Karim Sinjari, Barzani and Stuart Jones, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.