The developments come after Iraq’s council of representatives held an extraordinary session on Jan. 5 to vote on a resolution for the Iraqi government to expel American and foreign military troops in Iraq.
Kurds and Sunni Arabs did not attend the parliamentary session.
The session was held after an American drone killed the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force Qasim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of the Tehran-aligned Kata’ib Hizbollah militia in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the United States has said it does not plan to leave Iraq, despite rumors suggesting otherwise.
Read More: Pentagon chiefs: we have no plans to leave Iraq
On Jan. 7, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told journalists that American forces were not leaving Iraq, contrary to a letter, ostensibly from a senior US military officer to his Iraqi counterpart, which circulated widely on social media and which suggested that US forces were redeploying within Iraq, in preparation for leaving the country altogether.