Iran welcomes the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and demands that Washington be held accountable

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday congratulated the government and people of Iraq on the departure of U.S. and other foreign forces from the country, calling the withdrawal a “very important and necessary step” towards strengthening Iraq’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, as Al Jazeera reports.

The statement was published on the ministry’s Telegram channel and accuses the United States of having caused “irreparable consequences” for Iraq and the region since the 2003 invasion, which according to Tehran was launched on the false pretext of “weapons of mass destruction”.

The ministry cited the killing of more than one million Iraqis, damage amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and the rise of ISIS, demanding that the U.S. government be held accountable for the crimes committed during the occupation.

The statement also paid tribute to Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. strike in Baghdad in 2020.