Among other things, there are Finnish soldiers in Iraq as part of the multinational anti-Isis coalition established a decade ago at the request of the Iraqi government.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Armed Forces said on Sunday that Iraq and the United States continued negotiations on the timetable for the gradual withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.
The negotiations originally started already in January, but less than a day after them, an attack took place in Jordan that killed three US soldiers, which the US blamed on armed groups supported by Iran in Iraq and Syria.
As a result, the United States did at the beginning of the month counterstrikes against groups in Iraq and Syria. U.S. forces struck more than 85 targets used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its allies, the U.S. Middle East Command (Centcom) said. In the X message service.
The US initially said it had notified the Iraqi government of the attacks in advance, which the Iraqi government strongly denied. The talks were canceled later, he said, among other things CNN.
– No announcement was made in advance. We told the Iraqis as soon as the attacks were done. — Iraq, like all countries in the region, understood very well that there would be a reaction to the deaths of our soldiers,” commented Vedant Patel, spokesman for the US State Department, according to CNN.
About 70 Finnish soldiers in the country
There are foreign troops in Iraq as part of the US-led multinational coalition against the extremist organization Isis, or Daesh, established in 2014 at the request of the Iraqi government.
A Finn also works in the country crisis management team as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) and NATO Mission Iraq (NMI) operations. There are approximately 70 Finnish soldiers in Iraq. Finland has participated in the OIR operation since 2015.
According to the Defense Forces, Finns in the country mainly operate in the Kurdistan and Baghdad regions of Iraq.
The goal of the OIR operation’s support and advisory activities has been said to be to develop the activities of the Iraqi security forces and their ability to combat Isis. The operation aims to prevent the resurgence of ISIS in Iraq.
Source: Reuters