ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— Discussing the ongoing Mosul offensive against ISIS at a panel organized by Rudaw Research Center on Wednesday a group of military experts and analysts stressed that once the radical group has been routed from the area new solutions must be found to prevent the rise of similar groups in the future.
Mala Bakhtyar, a senior leader in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said in his opening remarks of the panel, that if the Iraqi government and international powers continue their policies of the last century groups like ISIS will continue to rise and Iraq will have to deal with more failures for years to come.
“Terrorism will resurface if democracy is not embraced in the region,” Mala Bakhtyar said. “If human rights, individual liberties, and women’s rights are not ensured, and accommodated we should not expect any miracle from the liberation of Mosul or defeat of a group like ISIS.”
Mala Bakhtayr said that the former colonial powers drew borders in the Middle East based on their own political and economic interests alone and ignored the ambitions and concerns of local communities.
He warned that “if after all these troubles they will once again try to solve everything by the policy of oil wells and listen only to governments in the region, then we will see again and again what we have been suffering from for a century.”
Jabar Yawar, chief of staff of the Kurdish Peshmerga ministry added his voice to concerns over the future of Mosul after ISIS, saying that the city’s stability is crucial for the Kurdistan Region and that’s why the Kurdish forces are playing a direct role alongside Iraqi troops in the operation to drive ISIS from Mosul.
Yawar said that Kurdish Peshmerga forces were in the battle only to liberate Kurdish areas in the Nineveh plains 40 percent of which has been freed so far.
“The importance of this Mosul operation is that it puts an end to the idea of the so-called Islamic State,” Yawar said, adding that Erbil and Baghdad had an agreement to oversee the situation in Mosul after liberation through a joint commission.
He maintained that one solution for Mosul was “to create a professional national army without any sectarian or ethnic basis or quota,”
Babakir Zebari, former chief of staff of the Iraqi army joined the panelists by saying that “the fall of Mosul means the end of the Islamic State,”
“Mosul is where the group declared its caliphate and its where it will end,” he said.
Zebari said that the grievances of the people of Mosul have to be addressed by the Iraqi government in the future “as it is where troubles started when the army suppressed the voice and concerns of Mosul people through crackdowns.”
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