ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iran on Saturday congratulated the Iraqi people and government on the withdrawal of the US-led coalition, hailing the step as “highly important and essential” and criticizing the coalition’s presence as “disastrous.” 

On Wednesday, the US-led coalition completed its withdrawal from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The withdrawal was a key demand of several political forces and many Iran-backed Iraqi militias, with the armed groups saying the coalition had to leave before they could consider disarming.

In a statement late Saturday, Iran’s foreign ministry congratulated “the withdrawal of US occupation forces and other foreign troops following two decades of disastrous military presence in that country.” 

It labeled their withdrawal as “a highly important and essential step toward consolidating Iraq's national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence.” 

Tehran further “emphasized the necessity of respecting Iraq's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and noted that the military presence of the United States and its allies in the region has yielded nothing but the promotion of violence, insecurity, divisiveness, and terrorism,” it said. 

In the statement, the foreign ministry stressed the need to hold Washington “accountable for the crimes committed and the damages inflicted on the people of Iraq and other countries during this occupation.”

The Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, had initially set September 30 as the deadline for armed groups to hand over their weapons, coinciding with the coalition’s withdrawal, but later shifted to a phased process extending to June 2027 after several groups rejected the deadline.

Multiple pro-Iran factions rejected the notion of handing arms to the state, leading Baghdad to seek other mechanisms to regulate the factions’ weapons in a manner that would be acceptable to the groups.

On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) hailed the US-led coalition’s withdrawal as a “great victory” and said it marks the beginning of a “golden chapter” in the region.