Shafaq News / The Iraqi Foreign Ministry responded, on Thursday, to statements by the official spokesman of the US State Department, and while announcing the postponement of the announcement of the end of the military mission of the international coalition in Iraq due to recent developments, it confirmed the absence of US forces in Iraq except for advisers under the umbrella of the international coalition.
The ministry said in a statement received by Shafaq News, “These advisers are covered by the outputs of the work of the Supreme Military Committee, and the two parties are committed to the mechanisms followed and their outputs.”
She explained that “the work of the Supreme Military Committee has focused over the past months on assessing the threat of ISIS organization with the aim of reaching a deadline to end the military mission of Operation Inherent Resolve. On this basis, the presence of the international coalition advisers of all their nationalities on Iraqi soil will be terminated. These discussions included details that included the hierarchy of the withdrawal of advisers from the sites, leaving only agreement on the details and date of the announcement and some other logistical aspects. We were very close to the announcement of this agreement, but due to recent developments the announcement of the end of the military mission of the international coalition in Iraq has been postponed.”
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry pointed out that “the bilateral relationship with the United States in all fields, including the security relationship, is completely separate from the course of the relationship with the international coalition forces,” stressing that “this relationship exists before the coalition and will continue after it.”
She pointed out that “the Iraqi delegation discussed the future of the security relationship in the fields of training, armament, equipment and security cooperation, in light of what is allowed by the Iraqi Constitution and the framework of the strategic agreement between Iraq and the United States.”
On Wednesday, July 31, 2024, the military spokesman for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudan, said on Wednesday that coalition forces had committed a “crime of hein and a flagrant assault” north of Babylon, pledging to take appropriate legal and diplomatic action to “preserve the rights.”
A US official said on Wednesday that his country’s forces targeted fighters in the Iraqi province of Babylon who tried to launch marches that threaten US forces and the international coalition, which killed four members of the Popular Mobilization.
The Baghdad and Washington negotiations resumed last February, with the adoption of a deliberate and gradual reduction, until the end of the task of the international coalition forces to combat ISIS, according to Iraqi official data, to be followed by two more rounds in March and April.
There are about 2,500 US military personnel in Iraq, within the international coalition led by Washington since September 2014, and the soldiers are distributed among three main positions in Iraq, namely the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar, the Harir base in Erbil, and the Victoria camp adjacent to Baghdad International Airport, in addition to the American forces, French, Australian and British forces, operating within the coalition forces, and others within NATO in Iraq.
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