ASTANA, January 25. /TASS/. Russia has evidence that the United States has declared its readiness to start withdrawing its military contingent from Iraq, Russia’s special presidential representative for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentyev, has said.

"As far as we know, the US side has declared its readiness to meet the demands of Iraq and to start withdrawing the US military contingent," said Lavrentyev following the 21st international meeting on Syria on the Astana platform. It is difficult to judge how realistic this is, though. This process may last long, even years."

"The Americans, as you can see in many countries, get in very easily, regardless of the opinion of the leadership of certain countries, ostensibly for fighting terrorism. A very fashionable pretext this is. But getting out proves far more difficult," Lavrentyev added.

He recalled that the only country from which the Americans withdrew very quickly was Afghanistan.

"But there was a threat of physical impact on the representatives of the American expeditionary corps present there. They were forced to get out of there virtually in no time, in coordination with the Taliban (the Taliban movement is banned in Russia - TASS)," he pointed out.

"In all likelihood, the same may happen on the territory of Iraq, and on the territory of Syria. Whenever we contact our Kurdish colleagues we always tell them that it is necessary to negotiate, it is necessary to stay in touch with the central government, because you have to live together. You are a single state," Lavrentyev concluded.

Outlook for pullout of foreign forces from Iraq

Earlier, Reuters, citing sources, reported that the United States was ready to negotiate with the government the withdrawal of the international coalition it leads. The US ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski on Wednesday handed over a letter to Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, in which the US expressed its readiness to initiate a dialogue with the Iraqi authorities on the withdrawal of the coalition and its replacement within the framework of bilateral relations. Such talks might take several months. It is not specified what kind of replacement was mentioned.

On January 5, Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said that the excuses for the presence of the international coalition had been exhausted and Baghdad intended to take concrete steps to end the foreign military presence in the country. This happened after Abu Taqwa, one of the commanders of the Shiite Hezbollah al-Nujaba movement, was killed a day earlier and at least six other people were injured in the Iraqi capital in a US drone strike.