BAGHDAD, Iraq—The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi and the US president-elect Donald Trump spoke on the phone Friday for the first time since Mr Trump was elected to the office earlier this month. The American leader told Abadi that Iraq “will find strong and deep support” from the United States under his presidency.
“You are essential partners to us and you will find strong and deep support.” Mr Trump told the Iraqi PM, according to a statement from the Iraqi PM’s office.
Mr Abadi congratulated Mr Trump on winning the US presidential elections, and “expressed Iraq's willingness to expand the scope of relations between the two countries.”
Both sides also discussed the ongoing war against the so-called Islamic State, and the offensive to retake the Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul.
“Mr. Trump also extended an invitation to Dr. Al-Abadi to visit the United States and meet with Mr. Trump soon after the inauguration ceremonies next January.” the statement added.
Iraqi government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi told Rudaw soon after the results for the US election came out that Mr Trump’s victory will not impact or change its bilateral relations with the United States, including the war against terror.
“The Iraqi-American strategic agreement, including the economy and war on terror are all mutual files between the two countries and these ties will remain as they are and will not change anything between Iraq and the United States,”
Al-Hadithi said, “There are common interests and mutual relations between Iraq and America and I don’t expect any of this to change with Trump’s victory,”
Al-Hadithi whose government has a strategic security agreement with the US said that the election of Trump is only a change in names.
“For the past eight years the democrats have been in power in the United States and today the republicans have won, but this is only the change of people and names and not policy,” he argued. “Politics will stay as they are now.”
In December 2012 Iraq’s acting Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dlimi signed a memorandum of understanding on security cooperation with America’s Department of Defense.
According to the website of the US state department, “This agreement represents the strong military to military relationship between the United States and Iraq, and provides mechanisms for increased defense cooperation in areas including defense planning, counterterrorism cooperation, and combined exercises.”
