Iraqi refugees wait behind a fenced gate for food distribution at the Khazir refugee camp near the Kurdish checkpoint of Aski Kalak, 40 km West of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on November 21, 2016. / AFP
BAGHDAD: Iraq's foreign minister says progress in liberating the northern city of Mosul has been slowed by the Islamic State group's use of civilians as human shields.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari said during a visit to Hungary on Tuesday that 1,700 IS fighters have been killed and 120 captured in the battle for Mosul so far.
He says one third of the Ninevah province, where Mosul is the capital, has been freed from IS.
Al-Jaafari says 62,000 refugees have left the city — much fewer than was expected by authorities — and that Iraq is "prepared to receive many more."
Al-Jaafari, who signed a double taxation agreement with his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, also said Iraq needed to increase its crude oil output, which he said provided 90 percent of state budget revenues, and be exempt from OPEC output quotas because of its "extraordinary situation."
