Parliament Speaker drops vote on Ambassador nominees after MPs walkout

Shafaq News – Baghdad

Iraq’s parliamentary session collapsed on Monday after Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani added a vote on ambassadorial nominees to the agenda, prompting several lawmakers to walk out.

Al-Mashhadani later removed the ambassadorial vote from the agenda to restore order to the session, which opened with 170 lawmakers, according to Shafaq News correspondent.

Speaking to our agency, Haidar al-Salami, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the nominations as “unqualified and politically motivated,” warning that “most were unfamiliar figures lacking diplomatic backgrounds.”

He stressed that ambassadors must represent the Iraqi state—not partisan interests—pointing out that the Foreign Service Law requires 75 percent of ambassadorial posts to be filled from within the diplomatic corps, a requirement he claimed had been ignored.