Partitioning of Iraq, failed Israeli project: Expert

PressTV - Partitioning of Iraq, failed Israeli project: Expert

Wed Jul 2, 2014 4:51PM GMT

Press TV has conducted an interview with Elias Farhat, strategic expert from Beirut, about the Iraqi army pushing ahead with its offensive to flush ISIL militants out of the northern city of Tikrit.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Please give us your assessment about the success of the operations of the Iraqi army on the ground in repelling the ISIL terrorists?

Farhat: First of all the Iraqi army has succeeded to contain the offensive of ISIL and to stop it on the access of the province of Salaheddin northern of Samarra, the holy city of the two shrines. And now the Iraqi army is attacking the capital of the province of Salaheddin, Tikrit and there are fights in the northern part and in the southern part of Tikrit but still now the Iraqi army is about two kilometers from the downtown of Tikrit where mohafaza province center there and the former palaces of former president Saddam Hussein.

But in order to continue this attack successfully, the Iraqi army needs air support which is supposed to come through the Sukhoi Su-25 Russian fighters which until now ten of them have arrived to Baghdad and they flew over Baghdad as an experience flight.

Now if the fighters, the Sukhoi fighters are ready to get into the combat and to give air support to the advancing land forces to Tikrit, that will be much easier for the Iraqi army to take over Tikrit and when you take over Tikrit that means you deteriorated all the plan of ISIL and there will be a great possibility to advance north in the direction of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh where there are still in Tal Afar army units are fighting ISIL in the surroundings of Tal Afar and the Peshmerga of the Kurdistan is fighting the ISIL or at least resisting them in Nineveh Plain.

Press TV: Mr. Farhat, how do you perceive the recent surfacing calls of a partitioned Iraq, also the issue of the Kurds and the Israeli support for their independence?

Who is to benefit from such an outcome, which in the eyes of many would have serious security repercussions for the entire region?

Farhat: Israel has always tried to show itself that it has something to do in the region and it is effective while now Israel is in the weakest time in its history. It supported the partition of Iraq and the independence of Kurdistan while Turkey, the United States and Iran opposed that and Mr. Barzani is aware what means Turkey’s refusal and Iran’s refusal as well as United States refusal of any independence of the Kurdish state.

So I mean it is a continental state which has no harbor on the ocean or on the seas so it is not viable unless there is an accordance between Turkey and Iran as well as Iraq to its independence. But the three countries opposed this independence so it is a failed project until now.

AHK/HMV

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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