US sees progress on Iraq's disarmament plan ahead of Al-Zaidi's visit
Shafaq News- Manama
The United States has received “positive signals” from Iraq over efforts to place weapons under state authority, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday, indicating that the issue will top the agenda during Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi's upcoming visit to Washington.
Speaking at a press conference in Bahrain's capital, Manama, during a Gulf tour, Rubio disclosed that Washington has maintained direct contacts with Al-Zaidi's government and believes it is making progress despite the challenges involved. He pointed to Iran's support for armed factions in Iraq, as well as Palestine's Hamas, Yemen's Houthis, and Lebanon's Hezbollah, as evidence of Tehran's continued regional interference through proxy groups.
Read more: How the US pushed Iraq's armed factions toward disarmament
Ongoing negotiations with Tehran, he added, also aim to curb the activities of those groups, while declining to discuss Washington's contingency plans if diplomacy fails.
The Iraqi government has already begun implementing its weapons-control initiative, starting with the transfer of facilities and weapons belonging to Saraya Al-Salam, the armed wing of Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Patriotic Shiite Movement (PSM/Sadrist).
Read more: Is Iraq closer to restricting weapons to the state?
Baghdad has set the end of September as the deadline for integrating or disarming armed factions. While Asaib Ahl Al-Haq and Kataib Imam Ali have endorsed the process, Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Al-Nujaba, the largest Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, have rejected the timetable, conditioning any disarmament on the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country, also scheduled for September under an agreement between the US-led Coalition and the Iraqi government.
Al-Zaidi's visit to Washington, scheduled for mid-July at the invitation of US President Donald Trump, is expected to focus on the future of US forces in Iraq, a new framework for bilateral security cooperation, and expanding economic ties, sources familiar with the preparations previously told Shafaq News.
