In a statement released on Saturday night, the Foreign Ministry emphasized that the end of the foreign military presence in Iraq should be followed by accountability for the consequences of the US-led occupation.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while congratulating the people and government of Iraq on the withdrawal of the US occupying forces and other foreign forces from Iraq after two decades of a disastrous military presence in this country, considers this development a very important and necessary step toward consolidating Iraq’s national sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence,” it said.

“The tragedy of the 23-year US military presence and that of its allies in Iraq, which came about following the US military aggression against this country on March 20, 2003, under the false pretext of confronting ‘weapons of mass destruction’, had irreparable consequences for Iraq and the entire region. These included the killing and slaughter of more than one million Iraqis, including tens of thousands of innocent women and children; material damage worth hundreds of billions of dollars to Iraq’s physical, security and governmental infrastructure; the destruction of the environment; and heinous war crimes such as the torture of Iraqi men and women at Abu Ghraib prison, as well as paving the way for Takfiri terrorism and Daesh in Iraq and the surrounding region,” the statement noted.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran, while honoring the resistance and steadfastness of the Iraqi nation against occupation, terrorism and sectarianism, emphasizes the necessity of respecting Iraq’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and recalls that the military presence of the US and its allies in the countries of the region has produced no result other than promoting violence, insecurity, division and terrorism,” the ministry added.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while commemorating the memory of hundreds of thousands of martyrs who fought against occupation and terrorism, particularly the martyrs Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Haj Qassem Soleimani, stresses the necessity of holding the US government accountable and bringing it to justice for the crimes committed and the damage inflicted on the people of Iraq and other countries during the period of occupation,” the statement concluded.