BAGHDAD: US Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday assured Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi of continued US support to defeat Islamic State, the Iraqi government said in a statement.
The two discussed the situation in Syria and the war on Daesh in a phone call from Pence following Friday’s US strikes on a Syrian airbase to punish a chemical attack that killed scores of civilians this week in an area held by the opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Pence “affirmed that US policy in the region didn’t change, its priority is to defeat Daesh in Iraq and the region,” said a statement from Abadi’s office.
The Shiite-led Iraqi government issued a statement on Friday in reaction to the events in Syria reflecting a difficult balancing act between its alliance with the United States and with Shiite Iran, a key backer of Assad.
The Iraqi statement condemned the chemical attack, without naming Assad, calling instead for an international investigation to identify the perpetrator.
The statement also criticized “the hasty interventions” that followed the chemical attack, in an apparent reference to the US strikes.
A US-led coalition has been providing air and ground support to Iraqi forces battling the militants, allowing them to recapture most cities they had overran in 2014 in Sunni areas of northern and western Iraq.
An Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militia said on Friday it would keep on fighting in Syria in support of Assad, despite the US missile strikes.
“Our movement is proceeding on the path of jihad and resistance, and our position concerning the war in Syria won’t change,” Al-Nujaba spokesman Hashim Al-Musawi said in a statement.
Al-Nujaba is one of the groups accused by human rights organizations of killing scores of fleeing civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo last year.
Iran, by leveraging its ties with Iraq’s Shiites, has emerged as the main power broker in Iraq after the United States withdrew its troops in 2011.
US pledges continued support for Iraq’s war against Daesh
US pledges continued support for Iraq’s war against Daesh
Trump says Iran government change ‘best thing that could happen’
- US president's comments come after he ordered a second aircraft carrier to head to the Middle East
FORT BRAGG, United States: US President Donald Trump said a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen,” as he ordered a second aircraft carrier to head to the Middle East.
“Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump told reporters at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina when a journalist asked if he wanted “regime change” in Iran.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk,” he told reporters.
Trump declined to say who he would want to take over in Iran from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but he added that “there are people.”
He has previously backed off full-throated calls for a change of government in Iran, warning that it could cause chaos, although he has made threats toward Khamenei in the past.
Speaking earlier at the White House, Trump said that the USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East to up the pressure on Iran.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump said.
The giant vessel is currently in the Caribbean following the US overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is one of 12 US ships already in the Middle East.
When Iran began its crackdown on protests last month — which rights groups say killed thousands — Trump initially said that the United States was “locked and loaded” to help demonstrators.
But he has recently focused his military threats on Tehran’s nuclear program, which US forces struck last July during Israel’s unprecedented 12-day war with Iran.
The protests have subsided for now but US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, urged international intervention to support the Iranian people.
“We are asking for a humanitarian intervention to prevent more innocent lives being killed in the process,” he told the Munich Security Conference.
It followed a call by the opposition leader, who has not returned to his country since before the revolution, for Iranians at home and abroad to continue demonstrations this weekend.
Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear issue last week in Oman. No dates have been set for new talks yet.
The West fears the program is aimed at making a bomb, which Tehran denies.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said Friday that reaching an accord with Iran on inspections of its processing facilities was possible but “terribly difficult.”
Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week that he wanted to continue talks with Iran, defying pressure from his key ally for a tougher stance.
The Israeli prime minister himself expressed skepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn’t also cover Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 7,008 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the recent crackdown, although rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher.
More than 53,000 people have also been arrested, it added.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said “hundreds” of people were facing charges linked to the protests that could see them sentenced to death.
Figures working within the Iranian system have also been arrested, with three politicians detained this week from the so-called reformist wing of Iranian politics supportive of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The three — Azar Mansouri, Javad Emam and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh — were released on bail Thursday and Friday, their lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the ISNA news agency.
