Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani (Al Jazeera)
Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani said on Thursday evening, “The government asked the international coalition to fight ISIS to end its mission in Iraq, in light of the readiness and efficiency of the Iraqi security services.”
Immediately, the White House announced that US Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the Iraqi Prime Minister at the Munich Security Conference today, Friday.
This came during Al-Sudani’s participation in a symposium on the sidelines of an official visit he is conducting to the Netherlands, in the presence of a group of businessmen and representatives of 40 Dutch companies, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, reported by the official Iraqi News Agency, “INA.”
At the symposium, Al-Sudani stressed that Iraq "today is going through a state of recovery at various levels, after passing the stage of the war against ISIS, in which the Iraqi people won with the support and backing of the international community, and the Netherlands was among the countries supporting these efforts."
He added, "We asked the international coalition to end its mission in Iraq, which lasted 10 years, in light of the readiness and efficiency of the Iraqi security services."
Last Sunday, Yahya Rasoul, spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, said that the Iraqi Supreme Military Committee resumed its meetings in Baghdad with the international coalition forces “to assess the military situation and the level of danger and set a timetable for a gradual reduction that will end the mission of the coalition forces in the country.”
He stated that, based on these meetings, a timetable will be formulated for a deliberate and gradual reduction, leading to the end of the mission of the international coalition forces to fight ISIS and the transition to a bilateral relationship.
On January 25, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the meetings of the working group of the US-Iraqi Supreme Military Committee formed between the two countries would begin discussing the future of the US military presence there.
The Supreme Military Committee is a continuation of the path that the two parties committed to, during the joint security cooperation dialogue between the United States and Iraq, which was held in Washington on the seventh and eighth of August 2023, according to the US Department of Defense.
Recently, demands have escalated in Iraq for an end to the international coalition’s mission and the withdrawal of American forces from the country, following exchanges of strikes between these forces and Iraqi armed groups linked to Iran, against the backdrop of a devastating war waged by Israel, with American support, on the Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October.
Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, the region has witnessed escalating tensions and exchanged strikes between Israel and its two main allies, the United States and Britain, on the one hand, and armed groups supporting the Palestinian factions, represented by the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthi group, and the Islamic resistance in Iraq, supported by Iran, on the other hand.
Source: Agencies