Against the backdrop of the escalating violence and the festering Shia-Sunni divide in Iraq, the US’s top diplomat has begun a series of meetings with the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad and urged the latter to form an inclusive government.
US Secretary of State Kerry’s visit to Iraq June 23 came on a day when a strategic Shia town was overrun by the ISIS militants, tightening their grip on north Iraq.
Kerry met Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and discussed exhaustively various facets of the crisis that is threatening to tear the Gulf nation apart. The threat posed by the virulently Sunni militant group, the ISIS, which has unleashed a reign of terror and seized large chunks of territory, is said to have figured prominently in the discussions.
Kerry “will discuss US actions under way to assist Iraq as it confronts this threat from ISIS and urge Iraqi leaders to move forward as quickly as possible with its government formation process to forge a government,” state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said ahead of the meetings.
The militants, led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have consolidated their control of the north of the country by capturing the Shia-majority town of Tal Afar and its airport, a local official and witnesses said.
In Baghdad, Kerry underlined that the top priority was “for the Iraqi people, for the integrity of the country, its borders, for its sovereignty.” He added that the ISIS was a threat to “all of us.”
Ahead of his visit to Iraq, Kerry had articulated the US’ position at a joint news conference June 22 with his Egyptian counterpart, saying that Washington is not in the business of picking Iraq’s leaders.
US President Barack Obama is mulling airstrikes against the Sunni militants. The White House, however, has made it clear that it will not like to take sides in a sectarian clash in Iraq and has urged Iraqis to present a united front against the onslaught of the ISIS.
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