In a press briefing on Monday, State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told journalists that discussions between Washington and Baghdad about a future military presence are continuing, as he suggested that nothing had yet been formally decided.
Moreover, as Patel made clear, the talks are not about the U.S. leaving Iraq. They are about a “transition” from the present military relationship between the U.S. and Iraq, based on the multilateral coalition against-ISIS, to a bilateral relationship.
As Patel explained, the U.S. has been holding talks with Iraq on the issue since 2023. That time frame suggests the talks began shortly after Prime Minister Mohammed Shi’a al-Sudani assumed office in Oct. 2022.
Such U.S. statements are welcome in the Kurdistan Region. No less a figure than Masoud Barzani, the long-time Kurdish leader, now head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), has stressed the importance of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. As he has said, that is vital to ensuring Iraq’s stability and promoting its national interests.
Coalition Troops to Stay an Extra Year in Erbil?
Indeed, the exchange at Monday’s press briefing was sparked by reports out of Baghdad claiming that an agreement had been reached on withdrawing troops that are part of the anti-ISIS Coalition from most of Iraq in late 2015.
However, according to those reports, Coalition troops would remain in the Kurdistan Region for an extra year, until late 2016.
That would be for two reasons. One is that the fight against ISIS in Syria depends on a Coalition presence in the Kurdistan Region. Troops from the anti-ISIS Coalition in Syria are supplied from the Kurdistan Region.
The second reason is that the hostility to the west that exists in Arab areas of Iraq does not exist in the Kurdish areas. As described above, no less a figure than Masoud Barzani has stressed the importance of maintaining a U.S. military presence.
Similarly, U.S. diplomats serving at the consulate in Erbil generally have a quite positive experience in the Kurdistan Region—which they then express as their term comes to an end.
Indeed, as Joey Hood, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who had previously served in the number two position at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, earlier told Kurdistan 24, “The Kurdistan Region could serve as a model for the rest of Iraq.”
State Department on Future of US Troops in Iraq
Patel was asked, “On Iraq, should we expect any announcement soon regarding the future of the U.S. military presence there?”
“We’ve held discussions with the Government of Iraq on the future of Operation Inherent Resolve [the formal name for the anti-ISIS Coalition] since last year,” Patel responded.
He noted that when Sudani visited Washington in April, he and President Joe Biden issued a joint statement in which “they affirmed that these conversations would be ongoing, and they would review these factors to determine when and how the mission of the Global Coalition in Iraq would end and transition in an orderly manner to a more enduring bilateral security partnership.”
“Those conversations are ongoing,” Patel concluded, and “I don’t have anything to get ahead of that process.”