US, Germany, France and Australia are on the move to withdraw forces from Iraq

A member of the Iraqi Parliamentary Security Committee, Bader Al-Ziyadi said on 10 February 2020 that Germany, France and Australia submitted requests to withdraw their forces from Iraq.

“Three countries, France, Germany and Australia, submitted a request to the Joint Operations Command to set a timetable for withdrawing their forces from Iraq,” said committee member Badr Al-Ziyadi.

He also added that the next government will set a timetable whether for the exit of foreign forces or the presence of military bases in some areas, especially in the Kurdistan region where there is no movement or sorties of the coalition forces at the moment.

In Iraq, Germany has a training mission and its defense chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer inspected Baghdad on 15 January 2020. It was a surprise visit to meet Iraqi military chiefs when Germany is reconsidering the necessity for a military presence in the country.

Regarding the Turkish forces in the city of Mosul, he explained that the Turkish forces are not within the international coalition and there is no strategic military agreement with the Turkish side, and to remove them from Iraq is the responsibility of the next government when the next government must take measures to remove those forces which exceed the Iraqi border.

An Arabic media also reported that US troops have started withdrawing from 15 bases in Iraq. Although, at the end of January 2020, the US House of Representatives passed two measures, one of which was to repealing Congress’s 17-year-old Iraq War authorization, which the Trump administration cited as a legal basis for assassinating Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. However, the resolution needs to pass through the US Congress when it is being controlled by the Republican party.

Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi is the next prime minister of Iraq. He is supported by influential Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who support an independent Iraq.

Allawi is being supported by Iran too. His works towards an independent Iraq mean more cooperation between regional actors such as Syria and Iran.