“We congratulate Haidar al Abadi on his nomination as prime minister, for him personally and for religious dignitaries, the Iraqi population and its political groups,” Ali Shamkhani, secretary and representative of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said in Tehran.
Maliki on Tuesday ordered the armed forces to “stay away from the political crisis”, assuaging fears that he could seek to leverage military power to stay in office.
In an apparent warning to Maliki, US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Tuesday that Washington “would reject any effort, legally or otherwise, to achieve outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial process”.
“There’s a constitutional process, it is happening, and that is what we support.”
“We are urging him to form a new cabinet as swiftly as possible and the US stands ready to support a new and inclusive Iraqi government and particularly its fight against” IS, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Sydney Tuesday.
He also reiterated Washington’s stance that US air strikes begun last week were not a prelude to the reintroduction of American combat forces.
– Iraq on the brink –
The political transition comes at a time of crisis for Iraq.
After seizing the main northern city of Mosul in early June and sweeping through much of the Sunni heartland, jihadist militants bristling with US-made military equipment they captured from retreating Iraqi troops launched another onslaught this month.
They attacked Christian, Yazidi, Turkmen and Shabak minorities west, north and east of Mosul, sparking a mass exodus that sent the number of people displaced in Iraq this year soaring.
A week of devastating gains saw the IS jihadists take the country’s largest dam and advance to within striking distance of the autonomous Kurdish region.
They also attacked the large town of Sinjar, forcing thousands of mainly Yazidi civilians to hide on Mount Sinjar with little food and water.
The United States and other countries have also said they are working to deliver much-needed arms to the Kurds, who are fighting IS militants on several fronts.
US strikes and cross border Kurdish cooperation yielded early results on several fronts, with Kurdish troops beginning to claw back lost ground.
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