"A big delegation came from the Iranian central bank and the idea was proposed to trade with Iran in euros," Abdulkarim Hashim Mustafa, special adviser to Iraq’s prime minister, said in an interview Tuesday in Moscow on the sidelines of a Middle East conference hosted by the Kremlin-backed Valdai discussion club. "There are other ideas to pay in Iraqi dinars, or in oil," luxtimes reported.
The US has been pressuring Iraq to end its purchases of Iranian natural gas and electricity, which meet a large share of domestic energy needs. In the meantime, it has extended to Baghdad a temporary waiver from the sanctions targeting Iran that President Donald Trump reimposed last year after pulling out of the Iranian nuclear deal. Mustafa said
"These are American sanctions and we have the right to protect our national interests,"Mustafa said. "We tell them always: we are your friends but we are not part of your policies in the region. The Americans are well aware of this - it isn't news for them."
Iraq doesn't expect the American forces to stay for an indefinite period of time, the official said. "When the Iraqi side asks the American side to pull out, they will withdraw as they have done in the past," he said. "As the terrorist threat recedes, the US will scale back its military presence in Iraq."
