BAGHHDAD, January 6 The Iraqi government intends to speed up negotiations with the The US international anti-terrorist coalition has announced the final withdrawal of its forces from the country, said press adviser to the Iraqi Prime Minister Hisham al-Ruqabi.
«The government is committed to speeding up dialogue with the international coalition to withdraw its forces from the country. Our technical teams are negotiating with the coalition states,» al-Ruqabi said.
“The Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces (Prime Minister — ed.) constantly monitors the composition of the armed forces in order to prepare for the period after the withdrawal of international coalition forces, despite the fact that they do not perform any combat missions on the ground,” he noted.
On Friday, the head of the Iraqi government, Mohammed al-Sudani, confirmed Baghdad's «steadfast and principled» position that the presence in Iraq of a coalition that has already fulfilled its functions should be ended. He also said that the government will soon determine the start date of the work of the bilateral committee, which will regulate the procedure for the final withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq.
Al-Sudani's statement came after the Iraqi military on January 4 blamed the coalition for a strike on a militia headquarters in Baghdad. According to Iraqi media reports, one of the commanders of the Shiite group Harakat al-Nujaba was killed in a drone strike on the militia headquarters in the east of the Iraqi capital. The airstrike also injured six people, including the militia intelligence commander. The Iraqi Armed Forces described the attack as a flagrant violation of the country's sovereignty and an act not different from a terrorist attack.
The Iraqi Parliament voted on January 5, 2020 by a majority of votes in favor of the withdrawal of foreign troops, and also spoke in favor of revising the format of cooperation with the US-led anti-terrorist coalition. These measures were a response to the operation carried out by the United States in the area of Baghdad airport, as a result of which on the night of January 3 of the same year, the Iranian general, commander of the special forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qasem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Iraqi Shiite militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, were killed. After these events, the US-led coalition handed over to the Iraqi military a number of facilities where US troops had previously been stationed, including a number of air bases and the headquarters of the coalition's military advisers.
Last August, al-Sudani stated that Iraq was discussing forms of possible cooperation with the countries of the international coalition after Baghdad no longer needed the presence of foreign combat units in the country.