Pentagon: Negotiations with Iraq on the fate of US troops continue

A Pentagon spokesman told a news conference on Thursday that the United States was holding technical talks with Baghdad a few days after the early elections in Iraq over the fate of US troops in the area, IRNA reported on Thursday, according to the Arabic-language Al-Hurra website. The country continues.

Kirby claimed that he was committed to supporting the Iraqi government in the face of ISIS, saying the United States did not want to see an increase in violence in Iraq or attacks and threats against its forces as a result of the election or for any other reason.

He stressed that US forces in Iraq still have the ability and right to defend themselves against any attack, without referring to the Iraqi parliament’s decision to withdraw foreign troops from the country.

A Pentagon spokesman said the United States was awaiting confirmation of the final outcome of the Iraqi parliamentary elections.

The Iraqi election comes as the former Iraqi government agrees with the United States that US combat troops must leave Iraq by the end of this year.

Baghdad and Washington had previously agreed to shift the US mission from operational and combat to advisory and technical.

In related news, the Wall Street Journal reported last July that the United States and Iraq had agreed to withdraw US troops from the country by the end of this year, and wrote that senior US and Iraqi officials intended to issue a statement in It calls on US troops to leave Iraq by the end of this year.
“We do not need additional fighters (American forces) because we have enough forces,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein told the Wall Street Journal.
“We need information cooperation,” he added. We need help in training the forces. We need air support.
Earlier, White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk met with senior Iraqi officials to inform them of the US decision to phase out Washington’s troops and military equipment.
According to informed Iraqi sources, the White House Middle East Coordinator has also stated that the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq will be phased in and will not be done “immediately” like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, so complete the withdrawal of US troops. It may take years.
The previous administration, led by Donald Trump, had previously announced that it would reduce its troop numbers in Iraq by 500, following which the Iraqi Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that the first US troops would leave the country as part of a recent agreement between Baghdad and Washington has begun.
The International Coalition Against ISIS recently put the total number of US troops on Iraqi soil at 3,000. However, some political and security sources in this country consider the real number of these forces in their country to be higher than the announced figure and want the issue to be clarified.
On various occasions, Iraqi officials and people have stressed the need for US troops to leave their country in order to implement the January 1998 parliamentary resolution in this regard.