US envoy hails cancellation of Mosul airport contracts as ‘sovereignty in action’

BAGHDAD — U.S. envoy Tom Barrack on Sunday praised Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s cancellation of three leases at Mosul International Airport held by companies the government links to armed factions, calling the move “sovereignty in action.”

“Prime Minister Al-Zaidi is sending a clear message: militia influence has no place in Iraq’s institutions. Iraq’s future belongs to its people, not armed factions operating outside the state. Sovereignty in action,” Barrack wrote on X.

Barrack is the U.S. special presidential envoy to Iraq and Syria and ambassador to Turkey. After meeting Zaidi in Baghdad on Thursday, he wrote that Iraq was choosing “sovereignty over dependency” and that the United States was deepening economic and commercial ties with the country.

A source told the state-run Iraqi News Agency on Saturday that Zaidi had ordered the cancellation of Sky Plus’s lease on the passenger counters, Sama al-Matar’s on the open-air parking lot inside the airport and al-Faisal al-Shamikh’s on the taxi office because of their links to armed groups. The services will be offered to international companies instead, the source said.

Neither the source nor the government has named the armed groups, and the three companies have not commented publicly.

Nineveh Governor Abdul Qader al-Dakhil said Saturday that he had sued former Transport Minister Razzaq Muhaibis al-Saadawi and the Iraqi Airports Management Department over the leases. The ministry and the airports department awarded them under former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s government without consulting the governor or the Nineveh Provincial Council, Dakhil told 964media.

The governor said the link to armed groups was the prime minister’s finding, not the local government’s. He did not name the court hearing his lawsuit.

According to documents Dakhil gave 964media, Sama al-Matar’s three-year lease on the parking lot was worth about 1.8 billion dinars (about $1.4 million at the time) over the full term. The governor’s written objection describes Sky Plus as an Emirati company paying $42,000 a year for the counters, or $58,800 with electricity, water and security fees.

At a meeting with Dakhil on Saturday, Zaidi ordered officials to speed up getting the airport running by contracting reputable, specialized international companies to operate and jointly manage it, his office said. The statement did not mention the canceled contracts.

The cancellations follow a wider review of airport contracts. On Wednesday, a source told INA that the Federal Commission of Integrity, Iraq’s main anti-corruption body, was auditing Transport Ministry and airport contracts and had found manipulation suspected of serving what the source called armed groups operating outside the law. It is not clear whether the Mosul leases were part of that audit.

Barrack’s post comes as the government pursues a plan to bring armed factions’ weapons under state control. In September, he said Washington and Baghdad had agreed the process would be complete by June 30, 2027, though some factions, including Harakat al-Nujaba, have said they will not hand over their weapons.

Sudani inaugurated the rebuilt airport in July 2025. It had been shut for 11 years after the Islamic State group seized Mosul in 2014 and wrecked it.