Amid conflicting stances over the nature of the US military presence in Iraq, President Barham Salih renewed his country’s keenness to expand the horizons of joint cooperation with the United States.
In a presidential statement released Monday, Salih praised the US-led coalition support to Iraq during his meeting with James Jeffrey, the US special envoy for anti-terrorism coalition, and his accompanying delegation in Iraq's northern city of Sulaimaniyah.
Salih lauded the US support provided for Iraq in various fields, and he stressed the importance of promoting coordination between the two sides at the security and political levels.
For his part, Jeffrey renewed his country’s determination to continue its support for Iraq and help it achieve progress in all arenas and restore its leading role in the region.
Meanwhile, Badir al-Ziyadi, an MP from Sairoon Alliance said Monday that a committee established by Sairoon, led by Muqtada Sadr, and Fatah Alliance, led by Hadi al-Amiri, should continue to prepare its final report concerning the presence of foreign forces in Iraq.
He said the report should be presented to Parliament’s presidency in the next session, adding that it “includes an article demanding that no foreign ground forces shall remain on Iraqi territories.”
National security professor at the Nahrain University Dr. Hussein Allawi told Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday, “There are no US military bases in Iraq, but rather security liaison centers between the joint Iraqi forces and US advisory forces”.
Allawi explained that the presence of training and rehabilitation programs between the US and Iraqi forces, in addition to the exchange of intelligence information helped achieve important results for the Iraqi air forces and the Coalition in attacking high-sensitive targets representing ISIS in Iraq.
