Mosul, July 19: Kurdish Peshmerga militias have the right to remain in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, an Iraqi Kurdish general on Sunday said in defiance of the Arab nationalist governor there. General Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government’s Ministry of Peshmergas, said Governor Athil al-Najifi had overstepped his authority when he recently promised to eliminate Peshmerga paramilitary fighters from Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.
“Al-Najifi’s recent statements reflect his personal views, and possibly the opinion of his political bloc, but do not necessarily reflect the position of the constitutional authorities of the federal government in Iraq or its laws. His statements are unenforceable,” Yawar told the German Press Agency dpa.
“The Kurds have no doubt that the situation in Mosul … has changed,” al-Najifi told.
–Agencies