U.S President Joe Biden started the last day of his Middle East trip with a visit to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Saudi Arabia.
The meeting in Jeddah took place before a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in an expanded format, which Biden also planned to attend.
Among other things, the meeting is likely to deal with the threat posed by Iran in the region, which has continued to expand its influence in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, for example.
Even after the end of the war against the terrorist Daesh, which is still active in Iraq and carries out attacks, around 2,500 U.S. troops are still stationed there. They also use the bases of Iraqi security forces there, which have been repeatedly attacked with missiles in the past.
Militias loyal to Iran are suspected of demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The U.S. has had a military presence in Iraq since its invasion in 2003, which led to the fall of former President Saddam Hussein.
Just a few months ago, Iran itself also claimed a missile strike in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
At the time, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) spoke of a retaliatory attack for Israeli actions in the region. They had attacked an Israeli intelligence base in Irbil with missiles. The Iraqi side described claims of an alleged Israeli intelligence unit there as baseless.
