One-third of Mosul liberated from Daesh: Iraqi FM

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari says around one-third of Mosul has been liberated since operations began to retake the city from the Daeshi occupiers.

Jaafari made the announcement after a meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin on Monday.

Adding that over 1,000 Daesh terrorists had also been killed and that some 650 had been captured, he stressed that operations were making progress. “Those are very good signs for the positive results of the operations. It’s going better than we expected.”

After months of preparation, Iraqi army soldiers, backed by pro-government fighters from Popular Mobilization Units and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched an operation to retake the strategic city of Mosul from the Daesh terrorists on October 17.

Jaafari also stressed that Iraq would not accept any manner of intervention by Turkish forces along its border regions.

Earlier in the month, Turkish military sources announced that a convoy of around 30 tanks and artillery has been deployed to the country’s southeastern town of Silopi, located on the border with Iraq.

Following the announcement, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned that Baghdad would dismantle Turkey if it invades Iraq.