Urgent – .US Chief of Staff of Armed Forces arrives in Baghdad

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Chief of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Martin Dempsey, arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday.

The spokesman of the US Embassy in Baghdad stated to IraqiNews.com “Dempsey arrived in Baghdad in official visit to Iraq,” noting that “Dempsey is expected to meet a number of Iraqi officials including the Premier, Nouri al-Maliki, and some military commanders to discuss upgrading the mutual cooperation between the two countries.”

Earlier, Dempsey said in a statement to reporters from the plane that was carrying him to Afghanistan “The Iraqi leadership wants to build security and military cooperation with the U.S. army, and I think they recently realized that they missed the opportunity to establish more normal relations with us, but I do not mean that we are going to return to Iraq.”

He added that “The Iraqi officials also realized that their abilities needs further development and they are trying to communicate with us to see if we can help them in this area,” stressing that “The Iraqi Defense Minister and the Commander of the Iraqi Army have asked about the possibility of conducting joint exercises with the U.S. military and possibility to train Iraqi officers and other forms of security cooperation.”

The Chief of Staff of the U.S. military Gen. Martin Dempsey will visit Iraq next week which is considered the first visit by a senior level U.S. military official to Iraq eight months after of withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011.

Iraq and the United States have concluded a strategic cooperation convention in 2008, under which the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq, took place by the end of 2011.