Iraq asks US to prepare troop pullout, send team to Baghdad
Caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has asked the United States to send a delegation to Iraq to begin preparing for a troop pullout, his office said on Friday.
In a phone call late Thursday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Abdel Mahdi “requested that delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement parliament’s decision for the secure withdrawal of [foreign] forces from Iraq,” AFP reports.
Some 5,200 US soldiers are stationed at bases across Iraq to support local troops preventing a resurgence of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).
They make up the bulk of a broader US-led coalition, invited by the Iraqi government in 2014 to help combat the jihadists. The deployment was based on an executive-to-executive agreement never ratified by Iraq’s parliament. On Sunday, the parliament voted in favor of rescinding the invitation and ousting all foreign troops.