Iran Foreign Ministry: US military withdrawal is an important step toward Iraq’s independence

Pars Today – Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday night that the United States must be held accountable and brought to justice for the crimes it committed and the losses inflicted on the Iraqi people and other countries during the occupation, stressing the need for accountability over those actions.

According to Pars Today, citing IRNA, the full text of the statement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry is as follows:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran congratulates the Iraqi people and government on the withdrawal of US occupation forces and other foreign troops from Iraq after two decades of disastrous military presence in the country. It considers this development a very important and necessary step toward consolidating Iraq’s national sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.

The tragedy of the 23-year US military presence in Iraq, together with its allies, which followed the US military invasion of the country on March 20, 2003, under the false pretext of confronting “weapons of mass destruction,” had irreparable consequences for Iraq and the entire region. These included the killing of more than one million Iraqis, including tens of thousands of innocent women and children; hundreds of billions of dollars in material damage to Iraq’s physical infrastructure, security and government institutions; environmental destruction; heinous war crimes such as the torture of Iraqi men and women at Abu Ghraib prison; and the creation of conditions that facilitated the emergence of Takfiri terrorism and Daesh in Iraq and the surrounding region.

While honoring the Iraqi people’s resistance and steadfastness in the face of occupation, terrorism and sectarianism, the Islamic Republic of Iran stresses the need to respect Iraq’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity. It also notes that the US military presence, along with that of its allies, in the countries of the region has produced no outcome other than the promotion of violence, insecurity, division and terrorism.