Kurdish leaders want Iraq's Nineveh province to be split up into three smaller ethno-religious territories after its capital Mosul is liberated from the Islamic state group [IS], a Kurdish official has said.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Kurdish leaders met with US Vice President Joe Biden last week during his surprise visit to Iraq and stipulated that the province should be divided after IS is defeated in return for their help in the city's liberation.
"[Kurdish officials] have given conditions for their participation in the recapture of Mosul and other cities in Nineveh. They insist on dividing Nineveh into three provinces after IS is kicked out," the high-ranking official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party toldThe New Arab.
The official said they want to establish a Christian province in the Nineveh plains north of Mosul, a Kurdish-speaking Yazidi province in Sinjar and the third province in Mosul.
I have quite a bit of trouble believing the Kurdish leaders would be benevolent to the Christians- They've shown only hostility towards them all this time. The Yazidi brand province is a bunch of nonsense- since the Kurdish PKK is sitting in Sinjar with their Kurdish Yazidi militias. As for the third province? The article does not mention what it will be. Considering the past actions of the ethnically cleansing Kurdish militias- It makes more sense that they want it all, but, may concede some sliver to the Christians, which can be over run by themselves at a later date.
"Mosul will remain part of Iraq, no one can divide it," the head of the Iraqi parliament's security committee, Hakim al-Zamili, toldThe New Arab."Yes is true there is plan [to divide it] but the people behind it have to know that it will not succeed and it will remain united." "The people of Mosul will not accept the price of the city's recapture being a division of the province," Zamili added.