A meeting between US President Donald Trump, who made a surprise visit to Iraq, and the country’s leadership has been scrapped, after the sides failed to agree on how and where to organize the talks.
“A disagreement over how to conduct the meeting led to the meeting being replaced by a telephone conversation,” said a statement from the Iraqi PM’s office.
Trump and his wife Melania visited the Al Asad Air Base west of Baghdad, and spent three hours with US troops stationed there. The visit was unannounced and secret so closely kept that reporters who flew with them on board Air Force One were under strict embargo not to report on it until hours after the fact. Only the sighting of the presidential plane in the skies above Europe hinted that something might be afoot.
His first presidential visit to the troops overseas followed Trump’s announcement that US forces would be withdrawing entirely from Syria and drastically reducing their presence in Afghanistan. The decision caused an uproar among both Democrats, Republicans and the US media, as well as the expedited resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis.
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