Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has been in Iraq since last night, where today he will be received by the President and the Prime Minister of this country and will have a meeting with the Spanish troops participating in a training operation for the Forces. Iraqi Armies.
The entire agenda of the President of the Government in Iraq will be developed throughout the morning. According to Moncloa, Sánchez will first be received by the Prime Minister of Iraq, Mohammed Shia al Sudani, with whom he will hold a meeting and appear before the media.
Around eleven in the morning (local time, nine in the morning in Spain), the head of the Executive will be received by the president of Iraq, Abdul Latif Rashid, at the Baghdad Palace. Subsequently, he will visit the Spanish contingent deployed at the Unión III multinational base, near Baghdad, where he will offer statements and meet with the troops.
Around noon, Pedro Sánchez and the head of the Iraqi Executive will hold a meeting with Spanish businessmen at the prime minister’s residence in Baghdad. The visit will conclude with a lunch offered to the Spanish delegation by Mohammed Shia al Sudani at the Government Palace.
As reported by Moncloa last week, Sánchez’s trip is part of the traditional visit that, at the end of the year, the President of the Government usually makes to one of the Spanish military missions abroad. In 2022, he traveled to Lebanon to meet with Spanish troops in the United Nations Interim Force Mission for Lebanon (UNIFIL). On December 14, Pedro Sánchez held a videoconference, also common on Christmas Eve, with all the missions abroad.
The Spanish military participates in the so-called NATO Mission-Iraq (NMI), an advisory and capacity-building mission whose main objective is to help Iraq build its security institutions and achieve more sustainable and effective armed forces with the capacity to stabilize the country, fight terrorism and prevent the return of Daesh.
All activities carried out by the NMI-Iraq have the consent of the Iraqi Government and are carried out in full respect of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to the Ministry of Defense. Since May 24, the NMI has been under the command of Spanish Lieutenant General José Antonio Agüero Martínez, who took over from General Giovanni M. Iannucci.
In addition, around 150 Spanish soldiers are integrated into the Coalition against Daesh (Operation “Inherent Resolve-OIR”) for training and training of the Iraqi security forces in their fight against the Islamic terrorist group.
