00:00Ali Al-Zaydi's visit to Washington, it comes at a very sensitive time.
00:04It comes at a time where we're seeing renewed tensions between Washington and Iran.
00:11It also comes at a time where back home in Baghdad,
00:14it's facing one of the largest anti-corruption campaigns in the history of the country.
00:21Now, both Trump and Al-Zaydi have agreed to these talks, but they both have their own demands.
00:29So there's a lot on the table.
00:31For the U.S., the U.S. demands have been clear from the get-go.
00:35They want to reduce Iran's influence in Iraq.
00:39They also want to see all the weapons in Iraq to be under state control,
00:45and particularly the weapons of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are backed by Iran.
00:52They also want to guarantee that we don't see foreign currency being smuggled into Iran via Iraqi banks.
01:03And lastly, the U.S. also wants exclusive deals for U.S. energy companies
01:10to build alternative energy routes to export oil in Iraq that bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
01:20And we can touch upon that point later.
01:22Okay, so what I'm hearing from you is that the U.S. has got quite a long list of demands
01:27that it's making of the visiting Iraqi prime minister.
01:31What about viewed from the other side?
01:33What would be on Iraq's wish list?
01:35What does Iraq want to get out of these talks?
01:38Well, for Baghdad, it's about resetting ties with Washington.
01:42I mean, the Iraqi prime minister, he said it himself.
01:45He said that he doesn't want the relationship between the U.S. and Baghdad
01:50to just merely be about crisis management, you know, addressing one crisis after the other.
01:57He doesn't want that.
01:58He wants to go beyond that.
01:59He's looking for a long-term, stable relationship with the United States.
02:05And actually, on the way to Washington, he took to social media and he tweeted on,
02:10he wrote on X, saying that his main focus is diversifying the economy in Iraq.
02:16He wants to create new jobs.
02:19And he wants to attract foreign investment.
02:23He just wants the dollars to be flowing back into his country, really.
