MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Hoshawi Babakr told RIA Novosti that the Peshmerga command could agree to allow Daesh fighters leave the city if there is general agreement, adding "militants have been bussed off in Syria too."
"Possibly," Hoshawi Babakr said. "If you look at operations in other cities, there was always some road left to leave less casualties, so that the [Iraqi] army and the Peshmerga [Kurdish militia] could gain victory.
"The Peshmerga has no plans to take part in the liberation of the city. The city will be liberated by the Iraqi army and the federal police."
"A lot depends on how the offensive will develop, whether the Iraqi army and the Sunni militia cope. But if the Shiites will intervene, then the Peshmerga, too, will begin to interfere."
The operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul will not be easy, but the Kurds and the Iraqi army expect assistance from the local citizens in the fight against Daesh, he said.
Babakr noted that when Daesh militants came to Mosul in 2014, the majority of Sunnis welcomed them, taking the extremists for the defenders from the unfair Iraqi authority. "But Sunnis did not expect that their life under Daesh's domination would get worse so much in politics, economy. There is no food, no medicines and many other things," Babakr said.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi announced the start of the military operation to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorist group.
According to local media, about 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and 4,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are taking part in the Mosul operation, backed by artillery and airstrikes carried out by the US-led international coalition against the terrorist group.
