Iran is pushing proposals to avert a confrontation between Iraq’s government and Tehran-aligned armed factions over their weapons, with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf taking the effort to Baghdad ahead of a Sept. 30 disarmament deadline.
Iraqi sources said Ghalibaf’s visit to Baghdad on Wednesday goes well beyond its stated parliamentary purpose, with talks focused on political and security issues — chiefly the fate of armed factions’ weapons as the deadline to bring all arms under state control approaches.
The sources said Ghalibaf was carrying Iranian proposals aimed at averting a direct confrontation between the Iraqi government and Tehran-aligned factions.
The ideas include “freezing” or concealing heavy weapons and possibly transferring a large portion of them temporarily to Iran until a political settlement is reached over the future of the factions’ arsenals.
The details of the proposals could not be independently verified, and neither Tehran nor the Iraqi government has announced them publicly.
