ERBIL () - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, with the two sides agreeing on the importance of Iraq dismantling terrorist militias, preventing attacks from Iraqi territory, and fully exercising its sovereignty, the State Department confirmed.
The meeting places the militia disarmament file at the explicit center of the US-Iraq bilateral relationship at the highest diplomatic level, with Rubio's in-person engagement with al-Zaidi at the UNGA margins representing the most direct American statement yet that the future of the partnership depends on Baghdad delivering on the weapons regulation commitment it has publicly made.
The State Department's summary of the meeting links three demands in a single sentence, and the sequence is deliberate. Dismantling terrorist militias comes first, reflecting Washington's primary objective and the September 30 deadline that al-Zaidi originally set and has now extended to June 30, 2027, under a phased plan announced the same day. Preventing attacks from Iraqi territory comes second, reflecting the drone strike on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline from Iraqi territory on September 10, which Riyadh chose not to respond to militarily at Iraq's own Prime Minister's request. Fully exercising sovereignty comes third, framing the first two demands not as American impositions but as expressions of what a genuinely sovereign Iraq would do independently.
The meeting with Rubio came as al-Zaidi announced his phased disarmament plan setting June 30, 2027, as the new deadline, beginning with a 90-day mutual halt in militia attacks and US strikes before the weapons handover phase begins. The Trump administration had already warned al-Zaidi during his Washington visit that monthly dollar transfers to Iraq would be suspended if Iran-aligned armed groups did not disarm, a financial ultimatum that exclusively confirmed through two Iraqi government sources. Rubio's Tuesday meeting reinforces that message at the foreign minister level on the world's largest diplomatic stage.
The Rubio-al-Zaidi meeting also follows Rubio's disclosure in an NBC News interview on the same day that the United States is open to a meeting with Iran on the UNGA sidelines, placing the Iraq militia disarmament file and the Iran diplomacy track in direct proximity. A militia disarmament agreement in Iraq is one of the structural preconditions for any durable US-Iran settlement, as the Iran-backed groups operating in Iraq are simultaneously the primary instruments of Iranian proxy pressure on American forces and interests in the region and the primary obstacle to al-Zaidi's sovereignty agenda.
