Western States, MSM Keep Hushing Up Situation in Iraqi Mosul - Lavrov

Western countries continue to hush up the severity of humanitarian situation in the Iraqi city of Mosul, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Lavrov noted that the battleground in Mosul saw a turning point with "the 'caliphate' suffering a defeat in the military dimension."

"Everyone remembers an emotional reaction of Western states and media controlled by them on the situation in Syrian Aleppo. At the same time, they continue 'to retouch' the situation in Mosul, concealing the scale of what is happening there. Meanwhile, the city was left by nearly 400,000 residents who found themselves in extremely difficult conditions," Lavrov told the Russian Argumenty i Fakty newspaper in an interview.

The situation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul remains severe due to the activity of Daesh terrorists. The eastern part of Mosul was liberated by the Iraqi troops backed by the US-led international coalition in January, while the western part is still under the control of jihadists.

Iraqi President Fuad Masum described in an interview to Sputnik earlier in March the situation in Mosul as a humanitarian catastrophe due to the civilian deaths, but urged to continue recapturing the city, since "it would not be sensible to leave the city to terrorists." He called for investigation into the mistakes made by US-led coalition airstrikes two weeks before to establish "whether there was a communication failure, whether the information was erroneous" and noted that the operation in that part of Mosul was postponed in order to find more appropriate methods to fight the militants.