Saad Hamu, a Yazidi journalist, told Sputnik News on Thursday that nearly 1000 Yazidi fighters, including 300 females, who remained in Shingal after PKK’s recent pullout, are in negotiations with the Iraqi government to enlist them in the Iraqi army.

Earlier this week, the city’s mayor, Mahma Xelil, reported the PKK’s pullout from Shingal and the arrival of Iraqi army vanguards to the region.

PKK said in an earlier statement it was withdrawing from the mainly-Yazidi region as it managed to protect the locals from Islamic State militants whose defeat the Iraqi government declared last December.

IS militants had massacred thousands of Yazidis and held others hostage after they overran a third of Iraqi territories in 2014.

Turkey declared recently it was eyeing an offensive in Shingal against the PKK but Iraq officially rejected the announcement, assuring it would not allow the use of its territories for military action against any neighboring country.

Reporter’s code: 50101