Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, as the US administration piles pressure on Baghdad to curb Iranian influence.<\/p>\n
\t His visit comes against the backdrop of renewed military escalation between the United States and Iran, Iraq’s main allies. <\/p>\n
\t Washington and Tehran’s enmity has long turned Iraq into a proxy battleground and left successive governments struggling to maintain a delicate balance between the two foes. <\/p>\n
\t Zaidi arrived in Washington on Monday for his first international visit since assuming office — a week-long trip during which he will meet Trump, US officials and representatives of oil companies. <\/p>\n
\t A businessman who came to power this year with US blessing after Trump vetoed another candidate, Zaidi vowed to boost Iraq’s fragile economy and to disarm the pro-Iran armed groups that have targeted US facilities. <\/p>\n
\t In an op-ed in the Washington Post ahead of his visit, Zaidi wrote that he leads “a government committed to ensuring that the state possesses the legitimate monopoly on the use of force”. <\/p>\n
\t His government has given armed groups, which Washington designates as terrorist organisations, until September 30 to disarm, coinciding with the end of the US-led anti-jihadist coalition’s mission. <\/p>\n
\t A senior Iraqi politician told AFP on condition of anonymity that even if the current government adopts a more US-friendly path, prioritising the economy, “it doesn’t mean that Iraq is turning against Iran”. <\/p>\n
\t Iraq “must maintain the long-standing balance” between its allies, he said. <\/p>\n
\t Last week, Iraq’s holy cities, home to Shia Islam’s most sacred shrines, hosted a massive funeral procession for Iran’s late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike on Tehran. <\/p>\n
The Iraqi government believes that maintaining a state monopoly over arms is a must to attract investments.<\/p>\n
\t In his op-ed, Zaidi said his message to the United States is that Iraq “stands apart from regional alignments and conflicts, and chooses instead the path of development”. <\/p>\n
\t In a show of support, the United States has resumed cash shipments for Iraq’s oil revenue, which have been handled from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2003. <\/p>\n
\t Washington had suspended the payments earlier this year as it pressured Baghdad to disarm the pro-Iran armed groups. <\/p>\n
\t While some armed groups said they will cooperate with Zaidi, others remain firm in their refusal to disarm. <\/p>\n
\t Iraq’s pro-Iran armed groups have seen their political and financial clout increase over the years, and have long called for the withdrawal of American troops deployed within the anti-jihadist coalition. <\/p>\n
\t During the Middle East war, they intervened in support of Tehran, targeting US facilities in Iraq more than 600 times. <\/p>\n
\t The senior politician said that some groups will likely not disarm “as long as there is a war in the region, neither they nor Iran would agree to it”. <\/p>\n
\t Last week, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed armed groups, said they opposed Zaidi’s visit to Washington. <\/p>\n
\t The groups said that they will strengthen their capacities, and warned against “replacing military occupation with an even more dangerous form of economic occupation”. <\/p>\n
Investments<\/p>\n
\t Oil-rich Iraq has been trying to move past decades of war and unrest, but it still suffers from poor infrastructure, failing public services, mismanagement and endemic corruption. <\/p>\n
\t In his op-ed, Zaidi said that in Washington he will create “opportunities that have a measurable economic impact” and wants “leading American companies to consider opportunities in developing Iraq’s infrastructure”. <\/p>\n
\t In recent months, Iraq has signed several deals with US companies in the oil and gas sector. <\/p>\n
\t In the United States, Zaidi is expected to sign more agreements, including one to establish a fund into which Iraq will deposit half-a-million barrels of oil per day in exchange for help to boost the country’s electricity supply. <\/p>\n
\t Like other oil producers, Iraq, a founding member of OPEC, was greatly affected by the Middle East war. <\/p>\n
\t It is hugely dependent on oil exports, which make up about 90 percent of its budget revenues, and the vast majority of its crude travels via the disputed Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[38,94,60136,3337],"class_list":["post-205381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-donald-trump","tag-iraq","tag-iraqi-prime-minister-ali-al-zaidi","tag-us-attacks-iran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116915943722020871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}