Baghdad, Washington to start talks to end US military presence in Iraq
The United States and Iraq said Thursday they will begin discussions on the future of American and other foreign troops in the country, with Baghdad expecting the talks to lead to a timeline for reducing their presence.
Washington has forces in Iraq as part of the international coalition against the Daesh terrorist group, but the country’s prime minister has called for the coalition to leave, AFP reported.
The talks – which have been planned for months – will come at a time of heightened tensions in Iraq and the region linked to the Israel’s war on Gaza, which has sparked a surge in attacks on American and other coalition forces.
Washington and Baghdad agreed to form working groups that would eventually lead to formulating “a specific and clear timeline... and to begin the gradual reduction of its (the coalition’s) advisers on Iraqi soil”, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry said the timeline would be contingent on evaluating the threat posed by Daesh and its danger as well as the reinforcement of the capacities of the Iraqi security forces. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed meetings would start “in the coming days” and said the process will “enable the transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between the United States and Iraq”.
There are roughly 2,500 US troops deployed in Iraq and about 900 in Syria as part of the anti-Daesh coalition formed in 2014 – the year the terrorist group overran around a third of Iraq.
A senior US defense official said the upcoming meetings would not be a negotiation on the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, but said Washington “sees a need to transition to a normal bilateral security cooperation relationship”.
There have been more than 150 attacks targeting coalition troops since mid-October, many of them claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq that oppose US support for Israel in the Gaza conflict.
Washington has carried out strikes on resistance groups in response to the spike in attacks, sparking condemnation from Baghdad, with Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani calling on the coalition to withdraw from the country.
Sudani said Daesh “is no longer a danger for the Iraqi state, and our armed forces are capable of fully assuming the maintenance of security and stability”.