French President Emmanuel Macron held a telephone call with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani during which Macron reaffirmed France's support to Iraq in its war against terrorism, the prime minister's media office said on Wednesday.
Macron telephoned Sudani after a member of the French Special Forces was killed early this week during a clash with ISIS terrorists in the Saladin Governorate, north of Iraq.
He affirmed France's commitment to continue combating ISIS, asserting that Paris will continue to work within the framework of the international coalition alongside the Iraqi government, the Iraqi Kurdistan government, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Sudani extended his condolences to Macron over the loss during the call, reiterating the importance of cooperation with the international coalition to eliminate the terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, Iraqi political experts wondered about the contradicting statements of top officials who emphasized that there was no need for foreign combat forces in Iraq.
They said that the presence of French and Spanish soldiers within the international coalition in Iraq seemed as if there was something Baghdad was not declaring about foreign troops.
Political observers noted that the parties rejecting the US presence in Iraq, namely armed factions loyal to Iran, did not announce a new position regarding the presence of foreign troops, even after the death of the French soldier.
They noted a remarkable transformation in the new relationship between Baghdad and Washington after the formation of Sudani’s government.
In January 2020, representatives of the Coordination Framework voted in parliament to remove the US forces from the country. However, this was not brought up again, which granted Sudani’s government an opportunity to work freely and arrange the relationship with the international coalition or the US.
Baghdad and Washington had signed in 2008 the Strategic Framework Agreement which represents the strong military to military relationship between the United States and Iraq.
Political science Professor at al-Mustansiriya University, Issam Faili, believes the recent US military movements are the most dangerous as they are the largest in Iraq since their withdrawal in 2010.
Faili told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US administration wants to redeploy its forces in Iraq for two main reasons: limiting the Iranian influence that extends from Baghdad through Damascus to Lebanon and the axis of the US-Russian conflict in the region.
He stressed that the United States would conduct maneuvers inside Iraq on the outskirts of Mosul and Kurdistan, which means that it will return with greater power this time because it wants to continue curbing Iranian influences, which will impact the internal situation in Syria.
- The US Ambassador remarks
The US Ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski, said on X social media platform, previously known as Twitter, that “it was great to meet the Minister of Defense again after the Joint Security Cooperation Dialogue that convened earlier this month in Washington.”
Romanowski said the meeting strengthened the US-Iraqi partnership: "We are creating solutions to a better future for all Iraqis."
She did not disclose the nature of the promised solutions.
Most Iraqi officials who meet the Ambassador do not issue statements expressing their vision of the future relationship with Washington, and thus, Romanowski's remarks remain the only source for news agencies regarding her almost daily meetings with senior Iraqi officials.
