BAGHDAD, June 9 (NNN-NINA) – Iraqi newly-appointed Foreign Minister, Fuad Mohammed Hussein, said, the Iraqi foreign ministry is preparing for an upcoming round of U.S.-Iraqi strategic dialogue.
A statement by Hussein’s media office said, Hussein made these comments, during his meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Matthew Tueller, in which Hussein considered the round of dialogue as “important, that will frame the priorities in Baghdad and Washington.”
For his part, Tueller congratulated Hussein on the occasion of assuming his post as foreign minister, looking forward to improving bilateral relations between the two countries, the statement added.
The meeting came, two days after the Iraqi parliament approved the remaining members of Prime Minister’s Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s cabinet, including Hussein’s portfolio, a month after parliament passed most of al-Kadhimi’s cabinet members.
In Apr, U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that Washington and Baghdad will hold a strategic dialogue in mid-June, to take a decision on the future of the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Relations between Baghdad and Washington witnessed a tension since Jan 3, after a U.S. drone struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, which killed Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq’s paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.
The U.S. airstrike prompted the Iraqi parliament, on Jan 5, to pass a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq.
Over 5,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Iraq, to support the Iraqi forces in battles against the Islamic State militants, mainly providing training and advising to the Iraqi forces.– NNN-NINA
