OTTAWA — Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is blaming the Iraqi government for holding up a Canadian military hospital that was supposed to be available to treat casualties during the attack on Mosul, which started last week.
"There were some delays from the Iraqi government side of getting all the resources in," Sajjan said Tuesday. "From our side, all the resources were put into place for getting all the necessary people and equipment into place."
Sajjan was speaking from Paris, where defence ministers from about a dozen countries gathered to discuss the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as well as what to do after Mosul is liberated from ISIL.
Canada pledged the hospital and 50 medical personnel in July specifically because of the upcoming operation to free Iraq's second largest city, which ISIL militants captured in June 2014.
The long-anticipated attack started on Oct. 17. For the past week, Iraqi and Kurdish forces have been closing in on the city, supported by international troops on the ground and aircraft high overhead.
Dozens of Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been killed and many more wounded in fighting for outlying villages and territory, according to media reports.
Canadian special forces troops have been working with the Kurds in northern Iraq for the past two years, and the Canadian military hospital is supposed to be located in the Kurdish capital of Erbil.
Sajjan said it was "regrettable" the hospital was not already up and running. He did not elaborate on the reasons for the delay, but said the issues had been resolved and the hospital should be in place soon.
"Keep in mind, the (Mosul) operation has just started," he added. "This is going to take some time. So our resource that we're going to put into place is still going to be timely and needed."
The Iraqi government temporarily detained a military plane in November 2015 that was carrying weapons to Canadian special forces in northern Iraq. The move came amid concerns about western support for the Kurds, who have made no secret of their desire to separate from Iraq.
The plane was released after four days.
Victory in Mosul, the extremist group's last bastion in Iraq, would represent a pivotal moment in the anti-ISIL campaign. The focus is expected to then shift to Syria, specifically the city of Raqqa, which has been ISIL's de facto capital.
Canadian troops are currently limited to operations in Iraq. But Sajjan left the door open to an eventual deployment into Syria, where American troops have been operating for several months.
The British government announced Tuesday that it will send military personnel to Jordan and Turkey to train Syrian opposition fighters, but those troops will not enter Syria.
"We are not participating in Syria," Sajjan said.
"Down the road, depending on how the political situation goes, how these negotiations are going, the circumstances could change. We will always assess the needs of the coalition as time goes on."
