The US invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003 frightened many countries.
This opinion, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, was expressed by Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev, answering the question of how he assessed the Western coalition’s invasion of Iraq.
“We, of course, still consider the coalition invasion of Iraq to be illegal. Because it was not approved by the UN Security Council. Many states were scared because a country that had authority was attacked under false pretenses. The question was who else would this crazy American animal attack, because they then announced that they would do whatever they wanted,” Kutrashev said in an interview with Izvestia.
He was asked whether the Americans in Iraq are still considered occupiers.
“No, this no longer corresponds to the concept of occupation. The term “American occupation” in the region applies only to Syria. There, the Americans have an illegal base in the At-Tanf region on the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border and a similar presence in Zaefratye - this is what we call occupation. They are in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government. Here, in this sense, everything is legitimate.
Currently, the American military presence is relatively small. If we compare with 2003, when their group was about 120 thousand people, if not more, then now we are talking about about 2,5 thousand people. In any case, this is no longer an occupying army that controls the situation,” the diplomat believes.