Iraqi PM, Barzani Agree on Joint Plan to Liberate Mosul
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said his government would work with Kurdish authorities to liberate the northern province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul from ISIL militants.
During his first visit to the Kurdistan region since becoming Prime Minister last year, Abadi said Baghdad and Erbil faced a common enemy and would improve ties to help confront the threat.
"Our visit to Erbil today is to coordinate and cooperate on a joint plan to liberate the people of Nineveh," Abadi said at a joint news conference with President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani on Monday.
Abadi declined to lay out a timetable for the plan to retake Nineveh in order not to lose the "element of surprise", according to Reuters.
The trip comes less than a week after militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group were driven out of the city of Tikrit by the Iraqi army and volunteer forces.
Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the ISIL terrorist group.
The ISIL militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.
However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, have blunted the edge of the ISIL offensive.