Remove Iraq from travel ban list, Abadi appeals to Trump

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi asked US President Donald Trump in a phone call to remove his country from a contentious travel ban list, a statement said on Friday.
Iraq is one of seven Muslim-majority countries whose citizens are barred from entering the US for 90 days under an executive order the newly sworn in US president signed on Jan. 27.
The ban was suspended by a lower court a week later and a federal appeals court on Thursday refused to reinstate it but Trump vowed to continue the legal battle for his order to stand.
“The prime minister stressed the importance of a review of the decision on the right of Iraqis to travel to the US,” Abadi’s office said in a statement after the phone call.
Abadi urged Trump to “lift Iraq from the list of countries mentioned in the executive order,” the statement said.
The statement said: “Mr Trump stressed the importance of coordination to find a solution to this issue as soon as possible and that he will direct the US State Department in this regard.”
Washington is a key economic, political and military ally for Baghdad, including in the war it has been waging against Daesh for almost three years.
Abadi had argued when the decree was first issued that the measure, which Trump has billed as an effort to make America safe from “radical Islamic terrorists,” was tantamount to punishing those fighting terrorism.
The statement said Abadi had expressed his wish to further develop relations with the US and Trump had renewed an invitation for him to visit.
Trump’s attempt to impose travel restrictions on Iraqis comes after an assertion that the US should have seized the country’s oil before withdrawing its forces in 2011.
Meanwhile, at least five people were killed and 19 wounded on Friday, in two suicide bombings that hit an Iraqi army position and a restaurant in eastern Mosul, a medical source said.
A man believed to belong to Daesh blew himself up inside the Sayidati Al-Jamila (“My Fair Lady”) restaurant at lunchtime, killing at least four people and wounding 15.
The second attack was a suicide car-bomb that killed a soldier and wounded four others in Al-Nour district.
Both districts were recently retaken from the militant group by US-backed Iraqi forces. An explosive belt of the style usually worn by suicide bombers also blew up in a street of Al-Zuhour without causing casualties.
The offensive that started in October to capture Mosul from Daesh paused last month after Iraqi forces took all the districts lying east of the Tigris river that bisects the city.
Friday’s attacks are the second major incident in districts retaken by Iraqi forces. A triple car bombing killed at least 23 people in the eastern suburb of Kokjali on Dec. 22.