Last Updated: March 23, 2024, 00:30 IST
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President Joe Biden plans to host Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia alSudani, who’s visiting subsequent month because the nations maintain formal talks about winding down the mission of a U.S.led navy coalition shaped to combat the Islamic State group in Iraq.
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden plans to host Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who’s visiting subsequent month because the nations maintain formal talks about winding down the mission of a U.S.-led navy coalition shaped to combat the Islamic State group in Iraq.
The assembly is scheduled for April 15, the White House stated Friday.
The leaders will “consult on a range of issues,” together with the combat in opposition to the Islamic State and “ongoing Iraqi financial reforms to promote economic development and progress toward Iraq’s financial independence and modernization,” the White House stated.
The two nations have a fragile relationship due partially to Iran’s appreciable sway in Iraq, the place a coalition of Iran-backed teams introduced al-Sudani to energy in October 2022.
The U.S. in current months has urged Iraq to do extra to forestall assaults on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria which have additional roiled the Middle East within the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel. It’s additionally sought to use monetary stress over Baghdad’s relationship with Tehran, proscribing Iraq’s entry to its personal {dollars} in an effort to stamp out cash laundering stated to learn Iran and Syria.
The U.S. and Iraq, in the meantime, held a primary session in January to debate ending the coalition created to assist the Iraqi authorities combat the Islamic State, with some 2,000 U.S. troops remaining within the nation beneath an settlement with Baghdad. Iraqi officers have periodically known as for a withdrawal of these forces.
The go to may even come a 12 months after the kidnapping in Baghdad of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-American tutorial at Princeton University who’s believed to be held by an Iran-backed militia, Kataib Hezbollah, that’s regarded by Washington as a terrorist group and is seen as some of the highly effective armed teams in Iraq. It was shaped through the energy vacuum that adopted the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Thursday, Tsurkov’s sister, Emma, urged the State Department to declare Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism and known as on the White House to make the al-Sudani assembly contingent on the prime minister arranging for the discharge of her sister — one thing she stated that he was empowered to do.
“I am appalled that Sudani will be allowed to shake President Biden’s hand while his other hand holds the keys to my sister’s shackles,” Tsurkov stated at occasion exterior the Iraqi Embassy in Washington.
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