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By Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his promise to withdraw the few remaining U.S. troops in Iraq, but said Washington would remain in a position to help if neighboring Iran took hostile action.
In his first assembly with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Trump said he was looking to the day when U.S. troops could leave the country, but said U.S. corporations were already making “very important oil deals.”
“We’ll be leaving soon,” Trump told reporters. “We have very few infantry soldiers in IraqArray … However, we are here for Array. And the prime minister knows it,” Trump said. “If Iran is going to do anything, we’ll be there for the Iraqi people.”
The president declined to set a timetable for a full withdrawal.
Trump’s first assembly with the Iraqi leader comes amid a new surge in tensions between Washington and Tehran after Washington said it would seek to reinstate all U.S. suspended sanctions opposing Iran at the United Nations.
Al-Kadhimi, who defied the strength of Iran-aligned armed teams in Iraq, took in April, fitting Iraq’s third head of state after months of fatal protests in a country exhausted by decades of war, corruption and economic challenges.
Washington is pushing for an extension of the UN arms embargo opposed to Iran, which expires in October from the 2015 Tehran nuclear deal with global powers, which the United States defected in 2018.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the U.S. is running with Iraqi officials to bring the number of U.S. troops in Iraq “to the lowest point as temporarily as possible.” The United States has about 5,000 soldiers stationed in the country and the 2,500 coalition allies.
Al-Kadhimi told reporters that Iraq is in talks with Turkey about what he called his involvement “unacceptable” in northern Iraq. Iraq’s charter explicitly banned the use of its territory to attack any neighboring country, he said.
The United States and Iraq affirmed their commitment in June to help U.S. troops in Iraq in the coming months, with no plans for Washington to have permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq.
Since 2014, the main project of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq has been to defeat the militant organization Islamic State. U.S.-led coalition officials say Iraqi forces are now largely capable of handling the insurgents on their own.
The Iraqi parliament had previously voted to leave Iraq, and the United States and other coalition troops left in the wake of the withdrawal.
Even as U.S. forces leave Iraq, U.S. power corporations are expanding their investments in the oil-rich country, which has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and low oil prices.
Five U.S. companies, in addition to Chevron Corp, signed agreements with the Iraqi government Wednesday for Iran’s independence of power from Iraq.
(Report through Jeff Mason; written through Andrea Shalal; edited through Diane Craft, Dan Grebler and Nick Macfie)