Shafaq News- Baghdad

NATO is considering returning its mission to Iraq after relocating all personnel to Italy during the recent Middle East conflict, the alliance’s former mission commander, French General Christophe Hintzy, told AFP on Friday.

Hintzy explained that NATO military staff were studying “various options” to reestablish the operation in Iraq, without specifying when or how such a move could take place.

Earlier this week, Hintzy handed command of the NATO mission to Spanish General Ramon Armada. During the handover ceremony, he indicated that any future return would likely take place “step by step” and in a reduced format. “We won’t be going back in the same configuration. It will be a much smaller setup,” he remarked.

The NATO mission in Iraq was launched in 2018 at the request of the Iraqi government as a non-combat advisory operation focused on strengthening Iraqi military and security capabilities. Before the redeployment, around 750 personnel from 21 countries, alongside roughly 500 contractors, were stationed in Baghdad.

On March 18 and 20, NATO evacuated about 1,300 personnel to Europe in two rotations, nearly three weeks after the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. Iran later carried out strikes in Iraq and Gulf states against targets it described as linked to the United States and Israel.

Since the evacuation, NATO has continued operating remotely from its regional command headquarters in Naples, southern Italy.