Iraq’s Parliamentary Leader Confronts Iran over Armed Groups
Iraqi Parliament Speaker Haybat al-Halbousi pushed back on an attempt by his Iranian counterpart to derail government plans to disarm militant groups during what sources described as a “tense” meeting on Aug. 19 in Baghdad.
Al-Halbousi asked Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, whether Tehran would accept Iraqi armed groups operating inside Iran with Baghdad’s support, according to sources who attended the meeting and spoke to MBN. The meeting was held in the Iraqi Parliament building.
Ghalibaf replied: “Absolutely not. We support the decision of the Iraqi state.”
“Then you should stop anything that appears to support the opposite of the Iraqi state’s position,” al-Halbousi responded.
MBN previously reported that during the meeting Ghalibaf had warned Iraqi leaders their plan to force Iranian-aligned militias to disarm would expand American and Israeli influence in the country. Ghalibaf arrived in Baghdad Wednesday morning as part of a senior parliamentary delegation for a three-day official visit at the invitation of al-Halbousi.
The discussion came roughly 40 days before the Sept. 30 deadline the Iraqi government, under pressure from the U.S., has set for the militias to give up their weapons. That date also marks the scheduled end of the international coalition’s mission in Iraq.
During the meeting, Ghalibaf proposed the armed factions retain their weapons or deposit them with the Popular Mobilization Forces instead of handing them over to the Iraqi government. One source said Ghalibaf said the arms in question were “Iran’s weapons.”
Persian vs. Arabian Gulf
The tensions extended beyond the militia issue.
Al-Halbousi also raised what he described as the Iranian ambassador’s “interference” in Baghdad in matters related to combating corruption, including the ambassador’s defense of people accused in some of those cases, according to the sources who were at the meeting. Ghalibaf did not respond, the sources said.
The two men also clashed over Iraqi oil shipments blocked from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the sources said.
At one point, Ghalibaf referred to the waterway as the “Persian Gulf.” Al-Halbousi objected: “There is no such thing.”
Iran officially uses the term “Persian Gulf,” while Iraq and other Arab countries call it the “Arabian Gulf.”
Al-Halbousi asked Ghalibaf why Iran was preventing Iraqi ships from passing through the strait despite their countries’ close ties. Baghdad had expected Tehran to grant Iraq an exemption, he said.
Ghalibaf said that Iran could not make an exception for Iraq because other countries would then seek similar exemptions. The current circumstances, he said, did not allow Iran to grant exceptions.
The closure of the strait presents a major problem for Iraq, which depends heavily on oil exports through its southern ports. Iraq’s oil production has fallen to about 1.2 million barrels per day, from roughly 4.3 million barrels per before the Iranian war prompted the strait’s closure.
A pipeline running through Iraq’s Kurdistan region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan is now the country’s only export route to the Mediterranean. The line currently carries about 170,000 barrels per day.
Dueling Social Posts
Later, the dispute over the Gulf’s name moved to the social media platform X.
Ghalibaf posted a photograph of himself in Baghdad standing in front of a mural showing a map of the region, including the label “Persian Gulf.”
The following day, al-Halbousi posted a similar photograph of himself standing in front of a map labeled in Arabic “Arabian Gulf.” He did not add a written comment, using only the hashtag “Arabian Gulf.”
Al-Halbousi’s post received more than 1.9 million views, compared with about 600,000 for Ghalibaf’s post.
The official statement issued by the Iraqi Parliament didn’t reference any specific disagreements.
It said instead that al-Halbousi had called for Iraq’s “specific circumstances” to be taken into account in oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz to protect the country’s economic interests.
During his visit, Ghalibaf also met with Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and President Nizar Amedi. He also attended a meeting of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iraqi Shiite political parties, and met with Faiq Zidan, president of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, on Thursday.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.