The United States has started withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, Al Arabiya TV reported citing Iraqi parliament member Ali al-Ghanimi.
He said that U.S. troops are beginning to leave 15 military bases in Iraq. In his words, the American have confined their presence by two big bases, the one near the city of Erbil in northern Iraq and Ain al-Asad airbase in the Anbar province some 180 kilometers west of Baghdad.
According to al-Ghanimi, the U.S. were seeking to find a lodgement at these bases but "the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi people insist that American troops be withdrawn from all the bases."
No official comments from the US side about the withdrawal of troops from 15 bases in Iraq have followed as of yet, TASS reported.
Deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association Andrei Baklanov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the beginning of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq should be seen only as a U.S. experiment. "It will probably not go beyond a certain regrouping and the subsequent understanding of what will happen next, as the final decision on no country has been made," he explained.
"Confidence in the U.S. as a country and as a partner has been undermined very badly. Trust in allegations of withdrawal or non-withdrawal of troops has been undermined. There must be confidence that if Washington makes a statement, it will be followed by the action. And we have seen many times that almost nothing was done after," Andrei Baklanov recalled.
On January 5, or two days after the United States’ missile strike near the Baghdad airport which killed General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution demanding complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country. The resolution however was passed in the absence of several leading parliamentary factions, which say this resolution is illegitimate and unbinding and its legitimacy is to be confirmed by the country’s Federal Supreme Court.
The U.S. has been refusing to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Moreover, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Baghdad with unprecedented sanctions.
