The United States will hand over to Iraq the diplomatic and logistical center at Baghdad Airport, which was repeatedly targeted by armed groups loyal to Iran during the war in the Middle East, according to what the Iraqi Foreign Ministry announced Thursday.
The ministry reported that its Undersecretary for Bilateral Relations and the US Chargé d'Affaires signed on Thursday "an agreement to hand over to the Iraqi government the diplomatic support site of the US Embassy at Baghdad International Airport," according to Agence France-Presse.
She explained that the step “comes... within the framework of the Iraqi government’s efforts to complete the procedures related to ending the mission of the international coalition and the foreign military presence in Iraq, according to the timetable set for September 30, 2026.”
For years, groups allied with Iran have called for the withdrawal of foreign forces deployed in Iraq as part of the “international coalition” led by Washington to fight ISIS. It has always targeted American installations and interests in the country.
During the Middle East war, these groups targeted American sites more than 600 times, including the Baghdad airport facility.
An Iraqi security official and a diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse earlier this month that American forces had evacuated the facility.
Baghdad and Washington agreed in 2024 to end the coalition mission, which began ten years earlier after the extremist organization took control of large areas in northern and western Iraq.
Coalition forces are currently deployed exclusively at Erbil Airport, the capital of the Kurdistan Region.
The presence of the coalition, especially after the defeat of ISIS in late 2017, has always been a source of tension between the Iraqi authorities and the factions.
Since taking office this year, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has pledged to end the state’s monopoly on weapons and hand over the factions’ arsenal.
The authorities say that ending the coalition mission removes a major justification for these factions to retain their weapons.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan urged the international community to maintain the “two-state solution” to ensure peace in the Middle East. Meanwhile, his Norwegian counterpart, Aspen Barth Eide, and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy and Joint Security, Kaya Callas, saw that the establishment of a Palestinian state “is not an unattainable goal,” warning, along with dozens of senior officials in the world, of the dangers of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and the continuation of fighting in Gaza.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan chaired an expanded meeting with Eddy and Callas on the sidelines of the high-level meetings of the eighty-first annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, on Thursday, and stressed that “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state is an inherent right and a basis for peace, and not a final result to be negotiated within an elusive political process,” describing the implementation of the two-state solution as “the ideal solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering.”
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and France led the first international conference on the peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue and the two-state solution in 2025, which led to growing international recognition of Palestine as a state. This momentum expanded this year with Britain and Canada joining the leadership of this effort to create an independent Palestinian state.
The Saudi Foreign Minister said that settlement expansion in the West Bank changes the reality on the ground, stressing that the Kingdom will continue to support a just settlement of the Palestinian issue. He pointed out that preserving the two-state solution “is not about maintaining a diplomatic slogan, but rather about preserving the possibility of building a different future, which is Palestine, a single, peaceful, sovereign state living side by side with Israel in security and stability along the 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Faisal bin Farhan expressed the Kingdom’s aspiration for “a bright future in which the children of the Arab region will be seen growing up without inheriting the fears of their parents, and families of different religions and origins not only sharing the land, but sharing one future.”
The Norwegian Foreign Minister was speaking during a ministerial meeting of the Global Alliance to Implement the Two-State Solution on the sidelines of the meetings of the 81st annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. He stressed that the Alliance already knows its destination, saying that “the primary goal of this global alliance is to implement the two-state solution.” We know exactly what the goal is. We do not need to discuss the goal, we need to discuss implementation.”
He stressed that the New York Declaration, the Comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza, and Security Council Resolution No. 2803 now constitute “a common reference point and a framework for achieving the right of the Palestinian people to establish a state.” But he warned that the conditions for establishing this state were fading. Therefore, “we must also ensure that the preconditions are not completely disappeared, making it impossible to build a two-state solution and a united Palestine. “This requires immediate action.” He explained that more than 90 countries work “on the basis of two states: Israel and Palestine, capable of living in peace with each other.”
Speaking in his national capacity, Eide identified four Norwegian priorities: First, the Oslo recognition of Palestine was intended to end what he described as the “effective veto” that arose from merely waiting for negotiations between the parties, as was the case during the Oslo process. He added: “This right has now been revoked.” Norway also prohibits trade with settlements, and distinguishes between Israel and Palestine “in accordance with international law, recent rulings of the International Court of Justice, and long-standing policies.”
Secondly, he stressed that a Palestinian state will not be established without effective national institutions. Norway provides financial support to the Palestinian government, and announced an increase in this support. A third called for progress on the next phase of the 20-item Gaza plan, including its path toward establishing a Palestinian state. Fourth, he identified that the region needs a more comprehensive security framework.
This is also what the High Representative of the European Union, Kaya Kallas, said, noting that 142 countries supported the New York Declaration a year ago as “a manifestation of the support of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world, not only for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, but also to provide the necessary means to achieve this.”
She pointed out that Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa was unable to attend in person due to the ban on American visas, so he joined via video. She stressed that his absence did not hide the political weight in the hall, saying: “If you look around you, you will see that the weight of the world is behind building a better future for the Palestinian people.” She praised the American and regional diplomatic efforts that resulted in the comprehensive Gaza plan that was later approved in Resolution 2803, and said that the Palestinian Authority had made “tangible progress in reform under extremely difficult circumstances.”
She added that the High Representative of the Peace Council in Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, has made progress in working to disarm Hamas and Israeli withdrawal. She warned that “the ambition of our global coalition, and indeed the New York Declaration, is increasingly at odds with the difficult realities on the ground.” She added that in Gaza, “progress on the ground remains very limited.” The strikes continue, humanitarian needs are still urgent, and many commitments have not yet been translated into tangible improvements.” She also noted that in the West Bank, “ongoing violence, as well as settlement expansion, continue to undermine the two-state solution.” She continued, "Our mission today is not to reaffirm our support for the goal of this movement, but rather to bridge the gap between commitments, procedures, and reality on the ground, and move from simply maintaining the status quo to achieving it."
Callas indicated that the European Union is working to stabilize the economy of the West Bank, launch an early recovery process in Gaza through the “Gaza Team” initiative, and implement pilot projects in the fields of waste and water. It concluded that the coalition’s responsibility lies in proving that the coexistence of two states side by side “remains the best option for building a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Palestine and Israel, and for the entire region.”
Speakers at the session were United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdel Ati, Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albarez, Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrow, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdul Al-Latif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, and others.
A meeting between US President Donald Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in New York raised questions due to the absence of members of the entire Iraqi delegation, one day after announcing the postponement of the completion of the arms control plan until June 2027.
A photo distributed by the Iraqi government's media office, on Wednesday evening, showed Al-Zaidi alone during the meeting attended by Trump and approved by senior officials in the US administration, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Besent.
Al-Zaidi's office said that he discussed with Trump the efforts made by Iraq and the United States of America to enhance regional and international security and stability.
The government did not provide any explanation regarding the absence of the Iraqi delegation, which included the ministers of foreign affairs, finance, electricity, and other officials.
Iraqi commentators linked Al-Zaidi’s attendance at the meeting alone to American suspicions about the possibility of leaking discussions between the two presidents through members of the delegation who have political representation in the “Coordination Framework” coalition close to Iran.
An Iraqi politician close to the leadership of the “State Administration Coalition” said that the way the meeting was held “is an expression of American dissatisfaction, especially with Trump, regarding what appear to be faltering steps to confine arms to the state so far.”
According to official statements, September 30 will not be the date for completing the inventory of weapons in Iraq, but rather it will be the starting point for the start of a new process extending to June of next year.
It is clear that Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who is visiting New York these days, was able to convince the Americans to obtain an additional period to limit the weapons, especially after the new date was adopted by the American envoy to Iraq, Tom Burke.
Salah Al-Arbawi, an independent Iraqi politician, said, “It is still too early to judge whether the timetable that will be announced at the end of the month will tip the balance in favor of any of the parties to the political conflict over the factions’ weapons.”
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Arbawi called on the Iraqi political forces to “deal with the arms issue rationally and calmly,” assuming that “Al-Zaidi has been able, at least so far, to reset the arms control plan after it faltered over the past weeks.”
However, experts believe that the recent discussions about amending the arms control plan could turn into an opportunity to improve Iraqi-American relations. Researcher Abbas Abboud said that the Iraqi-American relationship is witnessing a re-engineering through the mission carried out by the US President’s envoy to Iraq, Tom Barrack, by adopting the Iraqi and Syrian files.
Abboud explained in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that “Iraqi relations with Washington’s allies in the region are now passing through the White House on the basis of Iraqi disengagement from Iran.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a direct warning to Baghdad, stressing the need to “disarm the militias to avoid the Balkanization of Iraq,” coinciding with growing pressure on the Iraqi government to confine weapons to the state.
Rubio affirmed the United States’ support for the government of Ali Faleh al-Zaidi in its efforts to consolidate state authority, stressing the need to dismantle the armed factions.
Rubio warned that the continuation of multiple centers of power may lead to the fragmentation of the Iraqi state and the weakening of its institutions.
The US Minister's statements coincide with the approaching end of the international coalition's mission in Iraq, and with Baghdad rearranging the timetable for the arms inventory process.
Al-Zaidi presented a plan stipulating the start of a 90-day phase during which the factions stop carrying out attacks, and that the process of transferring weapons to the state is completed by June 30, 2027.
