ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Badr Organization chief Hadi al-Amiri on Wednesday said that they will not disarm at the behest of "external and foreign" actors, citing the presence of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) as a pretext to bear arms.

"Regarding disarmament, we refuse it based on external and foreign decisions," Amiri told reporters after a meeting with a Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) delegation. 

"It has to be the decision of the Iraqi people and government," Amiri said.

Faiq Zidan, President of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, on Saturday announced that the leaders of some armed factions have adhered to his call to cease military action and confine weapons to the state.

The development came amid intensified calls by Washington on Iraq to curb Iranian influence, pushing Iraq to dissolve all armed factions, including the state-integrated Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Amiri said that they agree with the Shiite religious authority's call that weapons must be confined to the state, caveating, however, that "we have our conditions for this matter, which is that the process will be carried out after the withdrawal of the international forces." 

The Badr Organization chief further noted that talks regarding the dismantlement of the PMF are "nothing more than rumors," adding that "we will in no way accept this to happen." 

Amiri's Badr Organization is a pro-Iran Iraqi political party and paramilitary group that was formed and led by Iranian officers in 1982 as the military arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. 

Several other Iran-backed Iraqi factions, including the Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), and Harakat al-Nujaba, all designated by the US as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), have rejected the call for disarmament.

In February, a group of 12 Republican Congress members directed a letter to US President Donald Trump's administration, calling for the cessation of all security assistance to Iraq and imposition of terrorist designations on several armed factions who are part of the Iraqi state security apparatus due to their affiliation with Iran, including Badr.

The Congress members, led by Congressmen Joe Wilson and Greg Steube, highlighted the ties between Iran and Iran-aligned militias with Iraqi security forces, such as the Badr Organization, previously known as the Badr Corps.

Wilson has sponsored legislation to designate the Badr Organization for years,  referring to the party as “a sectarian extremist terrorist organization like ISIS," and the "mother of all Iran-backed terror groups in Iraq."

US Special Envoy to Iraq Mark Savaya on Monday welcomed the steps taken towards disarmament, while asserting that practical steps must be taken to implement the process, not just statements of intent.