Iraq and US Need to Return to Dialogue Over Future of Coalition Force, Says Iraq FM 

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein addresses journalists during a joint news conference with his Dutch counterpart Hanke Bruins Slot at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP)
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein addresses journalists during a joint news conference with his Dutch counterpart Hanke Bruins Slot at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP)
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Iraq and US Need to Return to Dialogue Over Future of Coalition Force, Says Iraq FM 

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein addresses journalists during a joint news conference with his Dutch counterpart Hanke Bruins Slot at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP)
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein addresses journalists during a joint news conference with his Dutch counterpart Hanke Bruins Slot at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP)

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, in a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, stressed the need to return to the negotiating table over the future of the US-led international military coalition in Iraq, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Talks between the two countries began in January, but less than 24 hours later three US service members were killed in an attack near the Syrian-Jordanian border that the United States said was carried out by Iran-backed militant groups in Syria and Iraq. The talks have since paused then.

The US military launched airstrikes on Friday in both Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and the militias it backs, in retaliation for the attack in Jordan.

Hussein stressed to Blinken the Iraqi government's rejection of such attacks saying that "Iraq is not an arena for settling scores between rival countries."

The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq, advising and assisting local forces to prevent a resurgence of ISIS, which in 2014 seized large parts of Iraq and Syria before being defeated. Hundreds of troops from mostly European countries are also part of the coalition.

Iraq's government says ISIS is defeated and the coalition's job is over, however, a US withdrawal would likely increase concern in Washington about the influence of arch foe Iran over Iraq's ruling elite.

Iraq is keen to explore establishing bilateral relations with coalition members, including military cooperation in training and equipment.

Hussein formally demanded the US Treasury Department reconsider the sanctions it had imposed on several Iraqi banks, asking whether those sanctions were put in place over compliance issues or "other political reasons."

In July, Washington barred 14 Iraqi banks from conducting dollar transactions as part of a wider crackdown on the illicit use of dollars.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.