Baghdad, Iraq:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the Iraqi prime minister on Friday in an unannounced visit as he tries to coordinate a regional approach to Syria following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
The top US diplomat flew to Baghdad from the Turkish capital Ankara and began talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, an AFP journalist traveling with Blinken said.
Iraq wants to prevent any spread of chaos from Syria, where Islamist-led rebels overthrew the five-decade rule of the Assad dynasty after a lightning offensive on Sunday.
Both Iraq and Syria are still reeling from the insurgency of the ultra-violent jihadist group Islamic State (IS), which a decade ago established a self-proclaimed caliphate over vast areas straddling their border.
The Iraqi government has urged respect for the “free will” of all Syrians and the country's territorial integrity after the fall of Assad.
The deposed Syrian leader came from a rival faction of the Baath Party of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deposed in a US-led invasion in 2003.
The United States has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and another 900 in Syria, as part of a campaign to prevent the resurgence of IS.
President Joe Biden's administration has agreed with Iraq to end the coalition's military presence by September 2025, but stopped short of a full withdrawal of U.S. forces, whose presence has been opposed by Iran-linked armed groups in Iraq.
Newly elected President Donald Trump takes office next month and has long been skeptical of US troop deployments, although it remains unclear whether he would backtrack on Biden's deal or change tactics in light of developments in Syria.
Blinken has pushed for an “inclusive” political process to bring responsible government to Syria and prevent sectarian bloodshed as happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Blinken said in Jordan on Thursday that all regional players he had spoken to “agreed on the need for a unified approach to advance many of our shared interests” in Syria.
He also said he wanted to ensure “that Syria is not used as a base for terrorism” and that it does not “pose a threat to its neighbors, or be an ally to groups such as ISIS”, using an alternative acronym for IS.
Turkey strongly opposes the US alliance with Syrian Kurdish fighters, which the United States is helping in the fight against Islamic State but which Ankara links to banned Kurdish separatists at home.
Israel has in turn targeted Syria and decimated military sites along its historic adversary in the wake of a deadly campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, partly aimed at severing the regional influence of Assad-aligned Tehran connected, to curb.
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