Al-Sudani Confirms At The Concordia Summit in New York Iraq’s Exceptional Efforts To Calm The Situation And Prevent The War From Expanding in Lebanon

Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani stressed: "Iraq is making exceptional efforts to calm down and prevent the expansion of the war in Lebanon. The Prime Minister's media office stated in a statement: "Al-Sudani participated in the dialogue session held today, Wednesday, within the fourteenth Concordia Summit, which began its work in New York, on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The summit addressed a number of discussion topics that included cultural diplomacy and youth support, democracy, security and geopolitical risks, environmental sustainability and natural resources, global trade, manufacturing and supply chains, health opportunities and challenges, as well as human rights and social progress. Al-Sudani pointed out the difficult stage that the Middle East is going through, and Iraq's repeated warnings after the events of October 7, about the importance of stopping this war that targeted innocent citizens in Gaza and the occupied territories, which left a large number of martyrs, wounded and starvation, and the expansion of the conflict arena in the Red Sea, Syria and finally in Lebanon, in addition to the tense situation between the Zionist entity and Iran, which may lead to a wide war, indicating the importance of the Middle East region, which represents a third of the world's oil needs, in the face of the intransigence of the head of the occupation government and his disrespect for international institutions, laws and agreements, and the failure of the international community. Al-Sudani continued: "Iraq has an important role in the security and stability of the region, and has made an exceptional effort to calm down and work to prevent the expansion of the conflict arena, and has supported all solution initiatives, including the recent proposal by President Biden." He added: "We have pressured all regional parties on the issue of self-restraint, and not to be drawn into attempts to expand the conflict arena to include the Middle East. We called for holdin g a summit on Lebanon, and we have contacts with various leaders in the region, to urge an end to this war." He pointed out that "the relationship between Iraq and the United States is strategic, and is based on stations of helping Iraq to overthrow the dictatorial regime, and extended to years of supporting Iraq in confronting terrorism. In 2014, the Iraqi government requested international support from the United States to confront ISIS, and on this basis the international coalition to fight ISIS was formed." The Prime Minister continued, saying: "We fought fierce battles and won them and presented a model of cooperation with the United States and with regional countries to confront the threat of ISIS. It is important to re-evaluate the existence of this coalition, which today is limited to advisors and not combat forces as is being raised, and we are holding dialogues to arrange the process of ending the coalition's mission in which we thanked, on behalf of the Iraqi people and government, all the countri es that helped Iraq in its war against ISIS." He stressed: "Iraq will remain an integral member of this alliance to confront the threat of extremist terrorist ideology, and at the same time we open the door to bilateral relations in the security field, and we want our relationship with the United States to expand in the fields of economy, technology and other important sectors, in accordance with the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement. We have set a budget for three years, and the size of the investment plan in it reached about 83 billion dollars in 3 years. We cannot start real economic development without having extensive infrastructure and effective services that meet the needs of the citizen, and we have achieved an implementation rate of more than 33%, and about 25 billion dollars in the field of services over two years of the government's life. Optimism exists among the people regarding the seriousness of the government's implementation in the services sector." He concluded by saying: "We have pulled 1 2 million individuals from the brink of poverty, through cash subsidies and the food basket that cost about 9 billion dollars, to reduce the poverty rate, due to displacement, war and the halt in development over the past years." Source: National Iraqi News Agency