Iraq
US army paratroopers deployed from Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina on January 1, 2020. Photo: AFP/Robyn J. Haake
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s foreign ministry on Thursday said they have reached an agreement with Washington on the withdrawal of American troops, but that the announcement was delayed because of recent “developments,” a day after a United States official said they have not had discussions with the Iraqi government about withdrawing troops.
Discussions between Baghdad and Washington “included details that included the hierarchy of advisors’ withdrawal from the sites,” the foreign ministry said in an announcement on X. “All that remained was to agree on the details and date of the announcement and some other logistical aspects.”
The ministry noted that the announcement was delayed due to recent “developments” in the region, but did not go into detail.
The US has around 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq as part of a global coalition combating the Islamic State [ISIS]. Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran have repeatedly called for the withdrawal of the troops and carried out dozens of attacks on US forces based in Iraq and Syria. Washington has responded with airstrikes.
In January, a US-Iraq Higher Military Commission had its first meeting to discuss the future of the US-led coalition mission in Iraq. While Baghdad has maintained that the aim of the commission is to end the presence of coalition forces in the country, Washington has described the step only as a “transition” in the coalition’s role.
On Wednesday, a US state department official said a withdrawal has not been discussed. “At no point did we discuss the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, but we continued to discuss a - the transition to a - what we would say a bilateral security partnership,” deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a press conference.
In late July, a delegation of Iraqi defense and Peshmerga officials and their US counterparts concluded a two-day meeting at the Pentagon, reaching an understanding on a “new phase of the bilateral security relationship.”
The Iraqi foreign ministry statement said that their relations with the US are separate from the international coalition forces and that it “existed before the alliance and will continue after it.”
Reporting by Didar Abdalrahman and Diyar Kurda.
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