AhlulBayt News Agency: In a statement regarding the withdrawal of the US occupying forces from Iraq, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasized the necessity of holding the US government accountable for the crimes committed and the damages inflicted upon the people of Iraq and other nations during the occupation.
The text of the statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran is as follows:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while congratulating the people and government of Iraq on the withdrawal of US occupation forces and other foreign troops following two decades of disastrous military presence in that country, regards this development as a highly important and essential step toward consolidating Iraq's national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence.
The tragedy of the 23-year military presence of the United States and its allies in Iraq—which ensued following the US military invasion on March 20, 2003, launched under the false pretext of countering "weapons of mass destruction"—has had irreparable consequences for Iraq and the entire region. These include the killing of over one million Iraqis, among them tens of thousands of innocent women and children; material damages amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars to Iraq's physical, security, and governmental infrastructure; environmental destruction; heinous war crimes such as the torture of Iraqi men and women at Abu Ghraib prison; and the fostering of an environment conducive to Takfiri terrorism and ISIS in Iraq and the surrounding region.
While honoring the Iraqi people's resistance and steadfastness against occupation, terrorism, and sectarianism, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the necessity of respecting Iraq's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and notes that the military presence of the United States and its allies in the region has yielded nothing but the promotion of violence, insecurity, divisiveness, and terrorism.
While honoring the memory of hundreds of thousands of martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the struggle against occupation and terrorism—particularly Martyrs Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Haj Qassem Soleimani—the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the necessity of holding the US government accountable for the crimes committed and the damages inflicted upon the people of Iraq and other nations during the period of occupation.
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