RNA - Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesperson of the Popular Mobilization Forces, said in statements, circulated by some Iraqi media outlets, that US State Department Spokesperson, Heather Nauert’s description of Abu Mahdi al-Muhanids, deputy chief of the PMF, as a “terrorist” was a transgression against Iraqi security services, Iraqi News reported.
“We are waiting for the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to respond to that transgression,” Assaid stated, noting that those remarks would not discourage the PMF from its mission.
“He is a terrorist, and beyond that – I’m just not going to go beyond that,” Nauert said, speaking to reporters at a daily press briefing late Thursday.
She was asked to comment on reports that Muhandis had opened a PMF recruitment office in Kirkuk, which Iraqi forces, backed by PMFs, recaptured earlier this month from Kurds.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office had strongly rejected statements by US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson who called, during a visit to Riyadh on Sunday, for “Iranian militias” in Iraq to “go home”, referring to the mobilization forces.
Abadi’s office responded sharply, stressing that “no party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters.”
“The Popular Mobilization Forces are composed of Iraqi fighters, and had been formed under an offensive by Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) and its occupation of our cities,” Abadi’s office quoted him telling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in Ankara, where he arrived hours earlier.
“The PMF, today, is a part of the state’s security apparatus based on a law approved by the parliament,” Abadi added.
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