President Raisi told Prime Minister al-Kadhimi that “Iran supports the role of Iraq in the region and we seek to institutionalise security in [the] region revolving around Iran, Iraq and neighbouring countries without intervention of foreign forces”. “The presence of foreign forces, especially Americans, in any of the countries in the region is detrimental to security and stability in the region and the implementation of the Iraqi parliament’s law on expelling American forces from the country can be useful in this regard”, he emphasised. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, separately expressed concerns to the Iraqi premier over “the growing movements of terrorist groups that have bases in the Iraqi Kurdistan region”, calling for “their immediate disarmament and expulsion from Iraq”.