Muhsin al-Mandalawi, the parliament's first deputy speaker, on Saturday announced that the legislature will return to work on Tuesday after being on a break since mid-December. The date for the first parliamentary session is yet to be announced.
Mandalawi called on all MPs to expedite passing “all important laws” and to prioritize those that “serve the interests of the citizen and the projects that achieve real economic growth for the country.”
The parliament currently has no leader. The Federal Supreme Court on November 14 ruled to revoke Mohammed al-Halbousi’s parliamentary membership and end his tenure as speaker. The Sunni strongman was accused of forging the resignation of another Sunni lawmaker in 2022 by changing the date on the document.
The parliament was set to vote for a new speaker on December 13, but the session was postponed.
The new term of the legislature comes amid an escalation of tensions between Iran-aligned militias and US forces, who in the past couple of months have carried out numerous strikes against each other that are threatening Baghdad-Washington relations.
“The Iraqi foreign ministry must take the initiative of submitting complaints to the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council to confirm the American attacks and confirm the request of the Iraqi people’s parliament, which issued its decision to remove all foreign forces,” Ali al-Jamali, a Shiite MP, told Rudaw on Saturday.
In January 2020, angry over the US killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi deputy Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the parliament passed a non-binding resolution to expel all foreign forces.
The government is again under pressure to expel US troops after an American drone strike against the PMF’s Harakat al-Nujaba in Baghdad on Thursday killed two, including Mushtaq Talib al-Saeedi, better known as Abu Taqwa, a former commander of al-Nujaba and the deputy commander of the PMF’s Baghdad Belt Operations.
A day after the deadly strike, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said that the government is working to establish a committee to end the presence of the international coalition in the country.
Nihal al-Shammari, a Sunni lawmaker, warned that ending the presence of US troops in Iraq could result in some unintended consequences and crises, adding that it is unlikely Washington would remain silent in the face of Baghdad’s attempts to expel its forces.
“If the American cover on Iraq is lifted, it may give the terrorist groups a chance to appear again. There are fears about this issue if the US responds, and if it does not respond, I think there will be confrontations,” said the MP.
Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against ISIS, which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2019. Though the group no longer holds territory, it remains a security threat, carrying out deadly attacks on security forces and civilians on both sides of the border.
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