French President Emmanuel Macron will spontaneously visit Iraq on Wednesday. The visit will be about an initiative at the United Nations (UN) to "strengthen the sovereignty of Iraq". Macron announced this at a press conference on Tuesday evening.

Diplomatic step against interests of the AKP/MHP regime

Analysts evaluate the initiative as a diplomatic move, particularly against the interests of Turkey’s AKP/MHP regime. Turkey is the state that most violates Iraq's sovereignty through its war policy and is trying to occupy parts of the country. France stands in sharp contrast to Turkish interests in many hot spots around the EU. For example, France is intensively engaged in preventing arms deliveries from Turkey and the deployment of Turkish mercenaries in Libya. In the gas dispute in the Mediterranean, France is clearly on Greece's side and was openly threatened with war by the Erdoğan regime. So it is not by chance that France -probably even in direct reaction to Turkey's war threats of the weekend- starts an initiative to stop the aggressive Turkish ambitions in Iraq and Southern Kurdistan. Certainly Turkey is not the only country that violates the sovereignty of Iraq, as Iran is also on this list and all Western troops are also on this list after the withdrawal decision of the Iraqi parliament. In view of current developments, however, France is likely to refer here primarily to the AKP/MHP regime.

Last week, the French Minister of Defense, Florence Parly, visited Baghdad and Hewler (Erbil) and again pointed out the importance of the fight against the "Islamic State" (IS). She also discussed the Turkish invasion in the north of the country.