Baghdad, The newspapers issued today, Sunday, focused on the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani to Washington and projects to relieve traffic congestion in Baghdad.

Regarding the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, Al-Sabah newspaper said that political circles in Baghdad are awaiting the visit of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani to Washington, scheduled for mid-April, which is the first visit of its kind for Al-Sudani after he was assigned to head the government a year and a half ago.

The two sides are awaiting important files, including, most notably, scheduling the foreign military presence in Iraq, and supporting the government’s economic reforms, in addition to the relationship between Baghdad and Erbil, which is going through an ongoing crisis.

The political affairs researcher, Dr. Majashi Al-Tamimi said that Al-Sudani’s visit will discuss ‘only two issues.’ Al-Tamimi said, ‘The visit of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa al-Sudani to Washington will address two specific is
sues only, which are activating the strategic framework agreement signed with the American side in 2008, and an Iraqi request for economic support after providing guarantees to the American side to fight corruption and money laundering in Iraq.’ He added. “Specifically the subject of the US sanctions imposed on Iraqi banks, which numbered 32 Iraqi banks by the US Treasury.”

Al-Tamimi continued, ‘A large group of businessmen and experts in the fields of economics and finance will participate in the delegation in an attempt by the Prime Minister to encourage the entry of a larger number of American companies into the Iraqi market, despite the fact that the government says that there is a large number of American companies already present in Iraq, even if they are a large percentage of them use Iraqi companies as their fronts.’

He stated, ‘With regard to the issue of the sanctioned private Iraqi banks, most of these banks have asked the government to intervene to carry out reforms in their work that would be u
nder the supervision of the US Treasury to lift sanctions on them, especially in the issue of forming the boards of directors of each sanctioned bank and working with greater transparency under American supervision.’

He added, “It is unreasonable that most of these banks – each bank’s capital reaches 250 billion dinars, but they were punished and deprived of obtaining the dollar – due to corrupt financial transfers amounting to $15 million.”

Al-Tamimi warned that ‘the issue of the American presence in Iraq was not included in the visit’s agenda, given that this issue has been decided by Baghdad and Washington, and committees have been formed and are now continuing their discussions for the purpose of resolving this issue in accordance with the development of Iraqi armed capabilities, the threat of ISIS, and field developments.’

For his part, the academic and researcher in political affairs, Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Issawi said that the visit will discuss scheduling the foreign presence in Iraq.

Al-Issawi said, ‘
The visit comes at a very important time, coinciding with the escalation of demands to schedule the foreign presence in Iraq,’ he added, ‘The general title of Iraqi diplomacy is developing relations between Baghdad and Washington, as there are internal and external dimensions to the visit.’

He explained, ‘Internally, the first goal of the visit is to initiate actual steps that can be implemented for dialogue with the United States and the international coalition to schedule the foreign presence, in addition to the relationship between the center and the region, the economy, investment, and government reforms.’ He pointed out that ‘the external dimension is Iraq’s tendencies to support an effective foreign policy regionally and internationally.’

He pointed out, ‘The existence of the Strategic Framework Agreement, and this agreement can only be activated through mutual visits. Likewise, the existence of the international coalition requires political dialogues, in addition to many common economic files and oth
ers such as education, cultural exchange, and energy.’ He pointed out that ‘the government, after it intensified its efforts and began the steps of its program and reached the stage of harvesting and reaping the fruits of internal achievement, not wanting to neglect the external file.

Al-Issawi concluded by saying: ‘The visits made by the ministers are not as important as the visit of the Prime Minister, and we may witness other steps following this visit to develop the relationship between the two capitals.’

Source: National Iraqi News Agency