An official close to Washington reveals the fact that the withdrawal from its embassy is permanent

by **Rocky** Sun 14 Jul 2019, 9:14 am

Rocky

Rocky: Admin Assist; Posts : 280438
Join date : 2012-12-21

Post n°1

An official close to Washington reveals the fact that the withdrawal from its embassy is permanent

by Rocky Sun 14 Jul 2019, 9:14 am

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

An official close to Washington reveals the fact that the withdrawal from its embassy is permanent

2019/07/14 05:15:57

[rtl]The Iraqi politician close to the US administration, Antifad Qanbar, on Sunday, the fact that Washington sought to make the withdrawal from its embassy in Baghdad always.[/rtl]

[rtl]Qanbar told Ashqaf News that "the withdrawal of the United States Embassy from the capital Baghdad, according to US press reports, and not before the official US government statement."[/rtl]

[rtl]"The US administration is currently working to hit the militias in Iraq and Iran," he said, adding that "the subject is heading to escalation, there is no American intention to empty Iraq of the US presence, in light of the escalation between Washington and Tehran."[/rtl]

[rtl]Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is seeking to make the withdrawal from his country's embassy in Baghdad always, according to a report by Foreign Policy magazine quoting State Department sources.[/rtl]

[rtl]In May, Pompeo ordered a partial evacuation of diplomats from the US embassy in Iraq amid escalating tensions with Iran.[/rtl]

[rtl]Now, many foreign officials say they have been told that reducing the number of embassy staff will always be a reality, a step that could leave only a few of the staff of the US embassy to take on important tasks, such as confronting Iran on the diplomatic front. In the short term, In the Washington area without an embassy to return to.[/rtl]

[rtl]A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said that the description of the withdrawal was "inaccurate" and said that "no decision has been made on permanent staffing levels but a review of the number of employees is under way." However, three other ministry officials said, on condition of anonymity, Baghdad - reached after the evacuation of May last - treated as a permanent ceiling de facto to the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iraq.[/rtl]

[rtl]"They have already made a political decision to not return these people," a senior ministry official familiar with the internal deliberations told the magazine.[/rtl]

[rtl]"But they do not actually describe it as a withdrawal, they just say they are reviewing the departure order."[/rtl]

[rtl]However, only a small part of its staff are directly engaged in basic diplomatic functions, including political, economic and public diplomacy officials, and the majority are contractors, security personnel or officials from other federal agencies , Including the intelligence community.[/rtl]

[rtl]After the partial evacuation, two officials told the magazine that the embassy had fewer than 15 foreign officials who had been directly involved in basic diplomatic missions.[/rtl]

[rtl]The State Department spokesman did not confirm or deny the number of remaining employees, saying the foreign policy was not to disclose staffing levels for security reasons.[/rtl]

[rtl][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
[/rtl]