Iraq requests UN to end mission by 2025

BAGHDAD: Iraq has requested that a United Nations (UN) assistance mission set up after the 2003 Us-led invasion of the country end its work by the end of 2025, saying it was no longer needed because Iraq had made significant progress towards stability.

The mission, headquartered in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was set up with a wide mandate to help develop Iraqi institutions, support political dialogue and elections, and promote human rights. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organisations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission, known as UNAMI.

The mission’s head in Iraq often shuttles between top political, judicial and security officials in work that supporters see as important to preventing and resolving conflicts but critics have often described as interference.

“Iraq has managed to take important steps in many fields, especially those that fall under UNAMI’S mandate,” Sudani said in a letter to UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres.

Iraq’s government has since 2023 moved to end several international missions, including the Us-led coalition created in 2014 to fight Daesh and the UN’S mission established to help promote accountability for the militant group’s crimes.

Somalia’s government also requested the termination of a UN political mission this week.

In a letter to the Security Council, the country’s foreign minister called for the departure of the Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), which has advised the government on peacebuilding, security reforms and democracy for over a decade. He provided no reason.

Separately, Turkish forces have killed 17 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) across various regions of northern Iraq and northern Syria, the defence ministry said on Friday.

In a post on social media platform X, the ministry said its forces had “neutralised” 10 PKK insurgents found in the Gara and Hakurk regions of northern Iraq, and in an area where the Turkish military frequently mounts cross-border raids under its “Claw-lock Operation.”