SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The European Union will send election observers to Iraq to monitor the upcoming early parliamentary elections in the country, a senior official said on Monday.
Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein held talks with his European counterparts at a summit in Luxemburg on Monday.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrel reiterated European Union’s support to Iraq in the upcoming elections during the meeting with Hussein, according to the EU delegation to Iraq.
“Following an invitation from the Iraqi authorities, the EU had decided to deploy an Election Observation Mission (EOM),” Borrel was cited as saying.
The EU delegation to Iraq said the European Union “reaffirms its support to Iraqi’s government in its effort to deliver free, fair and inclusive Iraqi-owned and Iraqi-led elections, in full respect of Iraq’s sovereignty.”
Iraq is scheduled to hold early parliamentary elections on October 10, which was one of the main demands of anti-government protesters who organized months of mass demonstrations beginning in October 2020.
The vote is held every four years, but anti-government protesters demanded early elections.
In May, the U.N. Security Council unanimously renewed UNAMI mandate for a year and authorized U.N. Special Representative Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert to provide “a strengthened, robust and visible U.N. team, with additional staff, in advance of Iraq’s forthcoming election, to monitor Iraq’s election day with as broad a geographic coverage as possible”,
According to the resolution, UNAMI should “engage, encourage, and coordinate with, and provide, as appropriate, logistical and security support to international and regional third-party observers invited by the government of Iraq.”
