ERBIL, Iraq — Political wrangling between Iraq's federal government and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the north appears to have, for the time being, overshadowed planning for a military offensive to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State (IS).

After what they saw as a series of antagonizing gestures coming from Iraqi authorities in recent days, Kurdish military representatives reacted by canceling at the last minute their plan to attend an important trilateral meeting between the KRG and officials from Iraq and the United States. The meeting was planned for July 22 in Baghdad to discuss Mosul's liberation, Halgurd Hikmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish Ministry of Peshmerga, told Al-Monitor. The meeting has not been rescheduled yet.

The row started when the Iraqi government excluded Kurds from participation in its delegation in the anti-IS global coalition's meeting in Washington, which kicked off July 21. As a major force in the fight against IS, the Kurds did not take their exclusion from the Washington talks favorably. Subsequently, the Kurdish representative to the United States was incorporated into the Iraqi delegation.

The marginalization of the Kurds at the international forum came shortly after a memorandum of understanding signed July 12 between the US government and KRG representatives in the Kurdish capital, Erbil, which ensured US financial aid of up to $415 million and military support for Kurdish peshmerga forces. That memorandum was primarily meant to give the Kurds incentive to contribute strongly to any future offensive to retake Mosul from IS.