Both Iran and Iraq are considering barring Americans from the countries in retaliation to United States President Donald Trump’s immigration ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Saturday the government would take “reciprocal measures” against Trump’s move, warning against “collective discrimination” that “aids terrorist recruitment”. “Iran will implement the principle of reciprocity until the offensive US limitations against Iranian nationals are lifted...The Muslim ban will be recorded in history as a great gift to extremists and their supporters,” Zarif said on Twitter.
In Iraq, Parliament members called for retaliation against the US with similar measures. “Iraq is at the frontline of the war on terrorism...We ask the Iraqi government to reciprocate to the decision taken by the US administration,” said the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Influential Shi’ite clerics and groups also demanded the expulsion of US nationals from the country.
Besides Iran and Iraq, Trump’s executive order signed on Friday applies to citizens of Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas,” Trump had said while announcing the move.
The new order immediately halts a US programme that allows for the relocation of people displaced by war, political oppression, hunger and religious prejudice to the United States. The 2016 initiative had benefited around 85,000 people that year and was expanded by the Barack Obama administration to include 1,10,000 refugees in 2017. Exceptions during the freeze may be made on a case-to-case basis, officials said.
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