Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remained defiant on Wednesday as he rejected calls for a national unity government, a move that can only deepen the country’s political rifts as an Islamist-led insurgency gains ground.
“The call to form a national salvation government constitutes a coup against the constitution and the political process,” he said in a televised address.
The United States has pushed for an inclusive government in Baghdad, citing charges by minority Kurds and Sunnis that al-Maliki, a Shiite, has marginalised them during his eight years in power.
US Secretary of State John Kerry renewed that call during meetings on Monday with officials in Baghdad.
In Brussels on Wednesday, Kerry welcomed al-Maliki’s remarks saying they were broadly in line with Washington’s demands.
“In his remarks today, he did follow through on the commitments that he had made in our discussions,” Kerry said. “He clearly committed to completing the electoral process ... and he committed to moving forward with the constitutional processes of government formation.” Kerry said he was not sure what al-Maliki meant when he appeared to criticise a “national salvation government,” saying he had not discussed that with the Iraqi leader. The top US diplomat also said that the US is “not going to engage in the process” of saying who should lead Iraq.
Later on Wednesday, US State Department Marie Harf said that al-Maliki had rejected the “notion of an emergency government,” or the imposition of an interim government that’s outside Iraq’s constitutional process.
“In his remarks today he clearly committed to completing the electoral process ... to convening the new parliament and to moving forward with the constitutional process for government formation,” Harf said.
Al-Maliki, who is eying a third term, said he would attend the first session of the new parliament due July 1 when the legislature is expected to start procedures for naming a new prime minister.
Al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition topped the April polls with 92 of 328 seats.
“The rebels against the constitution have allied themselves with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and with (late dictator Saddam Hussein’s) Baath Party against the unity and independence of Iraq,” al-Maliki said. “Despite the tough and exceptional circumstances facing Iraq, we have not heard from these partners any semblance of political or media support,” he said, referring to his rivals without naming them.
Earlier this month, the al-Qaeda splinter group ISIL, believed to be backed by local Sunni militias, seized the northern city of Mosul and captured a string of towns stretching south towards Baghdad.
The insurgents have also made considerable territorial gains in western Iraq near the border with Syria and Jordan.
State broadcaster Iraqiya TV reported that special government forces have taken full control of the country’s largest oil refinery in Biji after clashes with insurgents.
But a security official said insurgents had seized an oilfield near the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said insurgents took control the Ujil oilfield after a fight.
The field, which produces about 20,000 barrels per day, is located outside oil-rich Kirkuk, one of several areas at the centre of a dispute between Baghdad and the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Peshmerga — the official military forces of Kurdistan — have taken advantage of the insurgents’ advances to tighten their hold on several such disputed areas.
Elsewhere, dozens of civilians were reportedly killed and wounded when a Syrian jet fighter mistakenly struck residential areas in the town of Ba’aj, north-west of Baghdad.
“A Syrian warplane was targeting ISIL gatherings last night (Tuesday) when it struck by mistake the municipality headquarters and some residential buildings, leaving dozens dead and wounded,” a security official told dpa.
Syria’s official news agency SANA however dismissed reports of Syrian military action in Iraq as “baseless.” ISIL, a radical Sunni group, already controls swathes of eastern Syria along the border with Iraq.
The insurgents’ swift advances have raised international fears that Iraq is falling apart and the fighting could result in the emergence of a militant enclave.