Baghdad dismisses US call for Iran-backed militias in Iraq to ’go home’

Baghdad Shia-led government has dismissed a call by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for Iranian-backed militia fighters who claimed to have helped Baghdad defeat Islamic State (IS) extremists to "go home."

A statement issued by Baghdad Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s office on October 23 responded to Tillerson’s remarks by saying that "no party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters."

The statement from Abadi’s office did not cite the prime minister himself but quoted a "source" close to him.

Speaking on October 22 after a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Abadi, Tillerson said it was time for Iranian military advisers and fighters “to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control."

"Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against is coming to a close, those militias need to go home," Tillerson said. "The foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control."

A senior US official said Tillerson’s remarks referred to militia fighters known as the Popular Mobilization Forces and the Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Tillerson’s Persian Gulf trip came amid efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to isolate and contain Iran in the Middle East and beyond.

It included a visit to the inaugural Saudi-Iraqi Coordination Council, led by Abadi and King Salman, which has been pushed by the United States as a means to counter Iran’s influence in Iraq.

In Tehran on October 23, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said Iran’s position in the Middle East had never been stronger.

"In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, northern Africa, in the Gulf region -- where can action be taken without Iran?" Rohani said during a speech that was broadcast by Iranian state television.