September 30: Iraq May Transition from Deadline Expiration to Start of a New Six-Month Disarmament Process
Identical Iraqi sources revealed that Iranian Assembly of Experts Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf’s visit to Iraq, during which he met Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and leaders of armed factions loyal to Tehran, goes beyond its stated purpose, focusing on political and security files, foremost among them the fate of the armed factions’ weapons as the deadline set by the government for centralizing arms under state control approaches on September 30 next.
Sources said Qalibaf carried Iranian proposals to avoid a direct confrontation between the government and the factions, including ideas related to “freezing” heavy weapons or hiding them, and possibly transferring a large portion of them temporarily to Iran, until a political settlement is reached regarding the future of the weapons.
A source close to the “Coordination Framework” told Irem News that a meeting held by Qalibaf with “Framework” leaders in Baghdad discussed new proposals to overcome the crisis over the factions’ weapons, fundamentally based on delaying disarmament and temporarily converting it into a “weapons management” format, and linking any military action by the factions to a decision by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
According to the source, Qalibaf expressed support for the proposals raised during the meeting, focusing particularly on the necessity of temporally separating the date of the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq from the start of actual procedures to centralize weapons, thereby granting the factions an additional deadline before moving to the implementation phase.
He added that the proposal is based on creating a “balance in dates and commitments and granting mutual guarantees to the parties,” rather than moving directly after September 30 to a confrontation between the government and the rejecting factions.
The source spoke of the possibility that the September 30 deadline could transform from an end to the disarmament deadline into the beginning of a new path that could last six months, despite no official decision being issued on that and the government’s continued insistence on the specified date.
According to the source, the committee has an additional task of de-escalating tensions between Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and the most hardline factions, foremost among them “Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq” and “Harakat al-Nujaba,” following an escalation in the intensity of mutual threats and the approaching September deadline.
The source said the selection of al-Amiri and al-Hakim was an attempt to leverage the former’s ability to communicate with the factions due to his position and relationships within the “Popular Mobilization Forces,” and the political cover al-Hakim can provide for any settlement within the Framework.
The package presented to the factions includes replacing the phrase “disarmament” with the concept of “weapons management,” so that the weapons remain in place, but their use becomes conditional upon an order from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, with subsequent arrangements to be reached regarding the storage locations of heavy weapons and the mechanism for controlling them.
