{"id":12399,"date":"2017-12-07T08:24:15","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T08:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=12399"},"modified":"2017-12-07T08:24:15","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T08:24:15","slug":"iraqi-foreign-ministry-rejects-calls-to-disband-popular-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/iraqi-foreign-ministry-rejects-calls-to-disband-popular-forces\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi foreign ministry rejects calls to disband popular forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 618px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-12399-1\" width=\"618\" height=\"348\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/178.32.255.194\/ptv\/\/SiteVideo\/20171205\/iraq_pmu.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/178.32.255.194\/ptv\/\/SiteVideo\/20171205\/iraq_pmu.mp4\">http:\/\/178.32.255.194\/ptv\/\/SiteVideo\/20171205\/iraq_pmu.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"item-text\">\n<p>The Iraqi foreign ministry has strongly rejected French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s call for dismantling the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known by their Arabic name as Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi, which\u00a0have played a significant role in crushing the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the Arab country.<\/p>\n<p>Ahmad Mahjoub, the spokesman for Iraq\u2019s foreign ministry, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with PressTV on Tuesday, describing Macron\u2019s call as a blatant intervention in Iraq\u2019s domestic affairs.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He said Baghdad highly appreciates its relations with Paris;\u00a0however, \u201cthe issue of PMU is an Iraqi internal affair\u2026 therefore any statements regarding the PMU or calls to dismantle it is an intervention in Iraq\u2019s domestic affairs, which we reject.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mahjoub also stressed that the PMU has made great sacrifices in the fight against Daesh and has been an effective force on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Iraq, calling for \u201ca gradual demilitarization\u201d of the forces and for all militias in Iraq to be \u201cdismantled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reacting to Macron\u2019s call, Iraq\u2019s vice president and former prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki,\u00a0said in a Facebook posting that \u201cMacron interfered unexpectedly in Iraq&#8217;s internal affairs by calling for the dismantling of a legal institution, Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A day after Macron\u2019s controversial request, Ahmad al-Assadi, one of the PMU\u2019s leaders, said that \u201cany such discussion is rejected and we do not accept interference in Iraqi affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n<div data-oembed-url=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2017\/12\/03\/544359\/Iraq-Macron-Maliki\">\n<div class=\"oembed\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2017\/12\/03\/544359\/Iraq-Macron-Maliki\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/media.presstv.com\/photo\/20171203\/9d9ecb87-7b86-455d-b955-28ae24e4b019.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2017\/12\/03\/544359\/Iraq-Macron-Maliki\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PressTV-Iraqi commander slams calls to disband popular forces<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2017\/12\/03\/544359\/Iraq-Macron-Maliki\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has already defended the key role of Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi.<\/a><\/div>\n<p>In October, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi strongly defended the Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi after comments by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that militias in Iraq should &#8220;go home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi is a combination of some 40 groups of mostly Shia fighters that was formed shortly after the emergence of Daesh in Iraq in mid-2014. In the early days of the Daesh\u2019s reign of terror, the then volunteer fighters played a major role in reinforcing the Iraqi army, which had suffered heavy setbacks in the face of lightning advances by the terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>The organization is considered to be part of the country\u2019s security forces and reports to the Iraqi premier, who is the commander in chief of armed forces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/178.32.255.194\/ptv\/\/SiteVideo\/20171205\/iraq_pmu.mp4 &nbsp; The Iraqi foreign ministry has strongly rejected French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s call for dismantling the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known by their Arabic name as Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi, which\u00a0have played a significant role in crushing the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the Arab country. Ahmad Mahjoub, the spokesman for Iraq\u2019s foreign ministry, made &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-islamic-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12401,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12399\/revisions\/12401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}