French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Kurdish region’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, December 2, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
December 2, 2017
PARIS/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called on Iraq to dismantle all militias, including the government sanctioned Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces.
“It is essential that there is a gradual demilitarization, in particular of the Popular Mobilisation that established itself in the last few years in Iraq, and that all militias be gradually dismantled,” he told a joint news conference held with the prime minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government.
Macron called for dialogue in Iraq between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous KRG within the framework of the Iraqi constitution.
After a meeting with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in Paris, Macron told the news conference he was convinced a “constructive dialogue” could lead to lifting Baghdad’s restrictions on the Kurdish region.
(Reporting by Michel Rose in Paris and Ahmed Aboulenein in Baghdad; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Maher Chmaytelli)
