Iraq, US continue negotiations on withdrawal of coalition

Negotiations between Iraq and the United States regarding the withdrawal of international coalition troops are ongoing; there is no decision or schedule for withdrawal at the moment,  Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said.

In response to a question about whether there was a timetable for the military withdrawal, Hussein repeated that “negotiations are still ongoing”, Political Lore reports.

Prime Minister Muhammad al-Sudani said on January 10 that Iraq is seeking the withdrawal from its territory of the international military coalition, which was created to fight the Islamic State terrorist organization, because it can protect itself from terrorism. Afterwards – already in early February – the Committee on Security and Defense of the Iraqi Parliament called on the country’s government to quickly conclude an agreement on the withdrawal of troops of the international coalition countries from Iraq.

The demand of Iraqi political forces for the withdrawal of foreign military personnel from Iraq has become increasingly heard recently in light of the constant shelling by Shiite militias of US military bases in Iraq amid the escalation of the situation in the region due to Israeli actions in Palestine and US attacks on targets in Iraq in the answer to this.

One of the latest examples is the death on January 4 in the center of Baghdad as a result of a US attack of one of the commanders of the Shiite movement Hezbollah An-Nujaba, Mushtaq Al-Jawari. In addition, the US military struck a target in Iraq on February 7, killing the commander of the Kataib Hezbollah group, whom the US considers responsible for planning and participating in attacks on its bases in the region, Central Command said.