Iraqi forces 'to liberate Mosul within a month'

By Zuhal Demirci and Ugur Cil

ANKARA (AA) - Iraq's ambassador to Ankara said Friday that he fully believed the Iraqi security forces would capture Mosul from Daesh within a month.

"We completely trust our security forces to liberate all of Mosul within about a month," Hisham Ali Akbar Ibrahim Al-Alawi told Anadolu Agency in an interview.

Al-Alawi said that Tal Afar and Sinjar would follow next.

"We will then proceed to liberate all other towns and villages in the region, starting from Tal Afar, including Sinjar," he said.

The Iraqi ambassador also commented on the bilateral relations between Turkey and Iraq, saying he was particularly hopeful about 2017.

"We are pretty optimistic about developing economic relations between Iraq and Turkey and increasing the mutual trade volume which has fallen during the previous years.

"We are also optimistic about reinforcing cooperation in energy, education and tourism," he said, adding security and military intelligence were the other two areas where the two countries should cooperate more.

In mid-February, Iraqi forces -- backed by a U.S.-led air coalition -- began fresh operations aimed at purging Daesh terrorists from western Mosul.

The offensive came as part of a wider campaign launched last October to retake the entire city, which Daesh overran -- along with much of northern and western Iraq -- in mid-2014.