Under the title "Withdrawal File: Fourth and Final Round of Dialogue Between Washington and Baghdad," the Arabic website reported that Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein confirmed that the fourth dialogue round between Iraq and the United States, set to take place later this month, will be the last. The minister disclosed in statements reported by local media that the meeting between Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss the entirety of the bilateral relations, including the non-retention of any U.S. base in Iraq. He added that the dialogue round will result in an agreement on scheduling the U.S. withdrawal from all Iraqi territories, pointing out that the Americans are present in Iraqi camps, not U.S. ones, as some claim.
Hussein indicated that the current U.S. administration understands the situation in Iraq differently than the previous administration, noting that the two sides may revert to the 2008 agreement after the conclusion of the strategic dialogue round. It is worth mentioning that Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein arrived last Monday at the head of a high-level delegation in Washington, D.C., in preparation for the fourth phase of strategic dialogue to discuss issues related to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The third dialogue round concluded last April, with both sides describing it as very successful, while the first round of strategic dialogue began in June 2020. The White House announced last week the resumption of the fourth round of strategic dialogue with Iraq on the 24th of this month. Iraq and the United States are linked by an agreement known as the strategic framework, signed in 2008, which organizes the nature of the relationship between the two countries at cooperation and support levels in security, economy, and development fields.
