Alwaght- Iraq's army has called for immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops, including Americans, from the Arab country, following airstrikes carried out by the US against multiple locations of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
In accordance with a parliamentary resolution passed earlier this year, the Iraqi military asked on Saturday all US-led forces to act within the resolution and pull out of Iraq.
Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill on January 5, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country following the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, along with the deputy head of the PMU, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and their companions in US airstrike authorized by President Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport two days earlier.
Later on January 9, former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the move.
According to a statement released by his office at the time, Abdul-Mahdi “requested that delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement the parliament's decision for the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq” in a phone call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The 78-year-old politician said that Iraq rejects violation of its sovereignty, particularly the US military's violation of Iraqi airspace in the airstrike that assassinated General Soleimani, Muhandis and their companions.
Iraqi MP: We demand immediate withdrawal of US forces
Meanwhile, an Iraqi lawmaker from the Fatah (Conquest) alliance has called for the “immediate” pullout of American-led forces from the country through diplomatic means.
“Our fellow countrymen and women have become fully convinced that whatever has happened or happens in our country over the past 16 years is due to foreign interference in general, and the American interventions in particular in Iraq’s domestic affairs,” Ahmed al-Kinani said in a press release.
He added, “I would like to refer to repeated attacks on the sovereignty of Iraq by the occupying US forces, including the bombing of the headquarters of our security forces, army and the PMU, which led to their martyrdom and injury besides destruction of civilian facilities.”
“Such repeated attacks do not show that US forces have good intentions, and that they must leave our land as demanded by the government, the parliamentary resolution and the Iraqi nation, who took part in a million-march demonstration and called for their immediate departure,” Kinani pointed out.
‘Next Iraqi PM must be someone who can stop US recklessness’
Another Iraqi legislator lambasted US airstrikes as blatant violation of the Arab country’s sovereignty.
Nada Shaker Jawdat said that the country’s next prime minister must be someone who can firmly act against the US recklessness and its utter disdain for Iraq’s national sovereignty.
