Iraq and the US on Saturday began talks on the future of American and other foreign troops in the country as Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani faces growing pressure to force them to leave.
Mr Al Sudani's office released a photograph showing him presiding over a meeting of top-ranking officials from the Iraqi armed forces and from the international coalition set up by Washington to fight ISIS.
It said he was hosting “the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the mission of the coalition in Iraq”.
“The talks and whatever progress made will determine the length of these negotiations,” Mr Al Sudani's foreign affairs adviser, Farhad Alaaldin, told AFP.
“Iraq is engaging the other countries taking part in the international coalition for bilateral agreements that serve the best interest of Iraq and these countries.”
The talks, which have been planned for months, come at a time of heightened tensions in Iraq and the region linked to the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which has sparked a surge in attacks on US and other coalition forces.
There have been more than 150 attacks on coalition troops since mid-October, many of them claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-linked groups that oppose US support for Israel in the Gaza conflict.
The US has launched several strikes in retaliation, raising pressure on Mr Al Sudani, whose government relies on the support of Iran-aligned parties, to call for the coalition to leave.
Washington had said on Thursday that it had agreed with Baghdad on the launch of “expert working groups of military and defence professionals” as part of the Higher Military Commission set up in agreement with Baghdad.
The working groups would examine “three key factors”, Washington said: “the threat from ISIS; operational and environmental requirements and the Iraqi Security Forces' capability levels”.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said on Thursday that the US military presence in Iraq “will certainly be part of the conversations as it goes forward”.
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said the talks would lead to formulating “a specific and clear timeline … and to begin the gradual reduction” of coalition advisers on Iraqi soil.
In a statement posted on Telegram on Friday, the Islamic Resistance accused the US of using the talks to “reshuffle the cards and buy time”.
“The Islamic Resistance's response will be to continue its operations … against the foreign presence until their true intentions and the seriousness of their commitment to withdraw their forces are proven”, it said.
There are about 2,500 US troops deployed in Iraq and about 900 in Syria as part of the anti-ISIS coalition formed in 2014 – the year the extremist group overran around a third of Iraq.
Iraq declared ISIS defeated at the end of 2017 after its army, backed by the coalition, and Iraqi Shiite militias backed by Iran reclaimed all of the territory seized, but the group continues to stage occasional attacks through sleeper cells.
With reporting from agencies.
