Report: U.S., Iraq Clinch Deal on American Troops Withdrawal

Date: 07 September 2024 - 22:15

News ID: ۱۳۱۰۷۴

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The U.S. and Iraq have reached an agreement for the withdrawal of U.S.-led occupation forces from Iraq, which would see hundreds of troops leave by September 2025 and the remainder by the end of 2026, according to a media report.
The Reuters news agency, quoting multiple unnamed sources within the governments of the U.S., Iraq, and other countries, said the withdrawal plan “has been broadly agreed but requires a final go-ahead from both capitals and an announcement date.”
“We have an agreement, it’s now just a question of when to announce it,” Reuters quoted a senior U.S. official.
An official announcement was initially scheduled for weeks ago but was postponed due to regional escalation related to the Zionist regime’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza and to iron out some remaining details, the report quoted the sources as saying.
Farhad Alaaldin, foreign affairs adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, told the news agency that technical talks with Washington on the coalition drawdown had concluded.
“We are now on the brink of transitioning the relationship between Iraq and members of the international coalition to a new level, focusing on bilateral relations in military, security, economic, and cultural areas,” he said.
The agreement comes six months after Baghdad initiated talks with Washington on the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed at Iraqi bases.
Those talks began after a wave of rocket and drone attacks on American forces in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for Washington’s support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and its atrocities against the Iraqi people.
The Iraqi resistance groups have been pressing for an end to the presence of foreign forces in Iraq for more than a decade after a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country in violation of international law based on false claims of it owning weapons of mass destruction.
There are nearly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of what Washington claims to be a fighting force against Daesh.