Over her trip to Iraq, Mogherini visited top Iraqi officials including President Barham Salih.
Over the meeting, the two sides discussed recent events in the Middle East and methods to develop mutual relationships. After the meeting, the Iraqi Presidency released a statement.
According to the statement, “in his meeting with Mogherini, the Iraqi President highlighted the importance of coordination and collaboration in order to address the current issues in the region.”
The statement added, “The Iraqi and European sides agreed that there should be joint plans and cooperation for saving the region from war and conflicts.”
During her trip, Mogherini also met Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed A. Alhakim and Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. Over these meetings, the two sides talked about expanding their relationships.
Obviously, the visit of a European Union high representative to Iraq is a critical event in the current situation; the tension rises as the United States ramp up sanctions against Iran and the western countries refuse to fulfil the commitments they made in their nuclear deal with Iran.
Anyway, a closer look at the details of the trip and the subjects discussed over the meetings reveal that Iraq delivered some clear messages about Iran to the Europeans.
One of these messages was the emphasis of Iraqi top officials that they will not give permission to any country to use Iraq’s territory for running operations against its neighboring countries.
The firm response of Iraqi officials to European Union representatives is quite meaningful because U.S., as the main partner and ally of EU has always been determined to use Iraq’s land for running plans against Iran.
For example, just a few months ago, Donald Trump talked about how the American forces observe Iran’s activates through Iraq.
Another message was that Iraq is going to adopt a balanced foreign policy. In his meeting with Mogherini, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said “the current government of Iraq pursues a balanced foreign policy and good relations will all its neighbors.”
By making these statements, the Iraqi officials are actually telling the westerners that they cannot sabotage their relationship with their neighbors, and particularly Iran, in order to develop their ties with U.S. and Europe.
These messages show that the efforts of the west for damaging the relations of Iraq and Iran have been fruitless and the Iraqi officials don’t intend to reduce their economic or diplomatic relations with Tehran, despite the constant pressures from the West.
Over this trip, Mogherini and other officials in the West realized that Iraq has no intention to follow in the footsteps of some other countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain who played a destructive and negative role in the region and exacerbated the tensions; in other words, U.S. and the West cannot depend on Iraq to follow the same destructive policy.
Iraqi officials are adamant to stay away from the ominous triangle of the Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain, but the western countries and specially U.S. have always done all they could to drag Iraq into regional tensions; however, up to now, their plans have been unsuccessful as Iraq has stayed firm on its policy to avoid rising up tensions.
Clearly, Mogherini has received Iraq’s clear messages regarding Iran and will deliver this information to U.S. who is their ally and close partner.
MNA/TT