Abadi says U.S., Iran helping Iraq fight ISIS

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said on Sunday American, British and Iranian advisors were assisting Iraq’s security forces in Baghdad’s campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

In an interview with Al Arabiya Channel to be aired Monday, the recently nominated prime minister also said that the country’s army would not be able to liberate the northwest Nineveh province from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) without the support of its residents.

ISIS took the Iraqi cities of Mosul, in Nineveh, and Tikrit in June and has announced an “Islamic Caliphate” in areas it controls in Iraq and Syria.

He also said militias in his country represented a benefit in the military’s campaign against the militants.

On the political impasse in forming a new government, Abadi dismissed as “not significant” the differences over choosing candidates for the interior and defense ministries and said the delay over the key portfolios was part of the democratic process.

He also would not rule out the establishment a “Sunni region” in Iraq if that was permitted under Iraq’s constitution.

The Iraqi leader also said the dispute with Iraq’s Kurdistan region could be resolved between the two sides but that achieving an independent Kurdish state was “not in my hands.”