The Iraqi government has responded to a statement of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson demanding “Iranian militias” involved in the conflict to “go home”.
On Sunday, Tillerson described the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) as “Iranian militants” and said they have to go home showing that Washington wants to know nothing about the real core of this organization.
On Monday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office released a statement on the issue saying that ‘No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters.” The statement added that the PMU made “enormous sacrifices to defend their country and the Iraqi people.”
The recently grown Kurdish-Arab tensions and the US hostile attitude towards the PMU, one of the key parts of the Iraqi Armed Forces contribute to further cooling of the relations between Washington and Baghdad. Despite this, Iraq and the US keep a high level of cooperation and relations in military, eoconic and diplomatic spheres.
