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Iraq's Maliki concedes defeat, backs PM
designate
15.8.2014 |
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Maliki steps down, supports
new Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi
August 15, 2014
BAGHDAD,— Iraq's divisive premier Nuri
al-Maliki dropped his bid to stay in power Thursday,
bowing to huge domestic and international pressure
as a jihadist-led offensive threatens to tear the
country apart.
The two-term premier threw in the towel after an
acrimonious political battle and backed his
designated successor Haidar al-Abadi, a fellow
member of the Shiite party Dawa.
"I announce before you today... the withdrawal of my
candidacy in favour of the brother Doctor Haidar al-Abadi,"
he said in a televised address, with Abadi standing
next to him.
His decision was swiftly welcomed by the US and the
UN.
"Today, Iraqis took another major step forward in
uniting their country," US National Security Advisor
Susan Rice said in a statement.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Maliki's
withdrawal "will allow the crucial process to form a
new government to proceed swiftly and within the
time frame provided for in the constitution."
He urged the formation of "an inclusive, broad-based
government ready to immediately tackle these
pressing issues."
Maliki, 64, turned the page on eight years that
saw him rise from the relative anonymity of a former
exile who returned in the wake of the 2003 US-led
invasion to become a feared and powerful ruler.
Quelling fears a desperate bid to cling to power
could worsen what is already Iraq's worst crisis in
years, Maliki said he was stepping aside to
"facilitate the progress of the political process
and the formation of the new government."
He defended his record at the helm but critics say
his sectarian policies have alienated and
radicalised the Sunni minority, most of whose
heartland was overrun by extremist Islamic State
fighters facing little or no popular resistance two
months ago.
The jihadist group has since declared a "caliphate"
straddling Syria and Iraq, hunted down religious
minorities, destroyed holy sites, seized the
country's largest dam and several oil fields.
The devastating militant advance has also displaced
hundreds of thousands of people and posed an
immediate existential threat to the world's seventh
oil producer by de factowww.Ekurd.net
redrawing its borders along ethnic and sectarian
lines.
Iraqi forces completely folded when IS forces moved
in and while the Kurdish Peshmerga initially fared
better, the US arms that retreating federal troops
left behind made the jihadists a formidable foe.
Mountain siege ends
President Barack Obama said a week of US air strikes
had broken the siege on a northern mountain where
civilians had been hiding from jihadists for more
than 10 days.
The ordeal of tens of thousands of people, mostly
from the Yazidi minority, was one of the dramatic
chapters of the devastating two-month conflict and
one of the reasons Obama sent warplanes back over
Iraq, three years after pulling his troops out.
"We helped save many innocent lives. Because of
these efforts, we do not expect there to be an
additional operation to evacuate people off the
mountain and it's unlikely we're going to need to
continue humanitarian air drops on the mountain,"
Obama said.
He had warned that a massacre on Mount Sinjar could
lead to a genocide against the vulnerable Yazidi
minority, whose members are now largely massing into
camps in autonomous Kurdistan.
The Pentagon said 4,000 to 5,000 Yazidis remained on
the mountain, which they hold to be the final
resting place of Noah's Ark, but explained 2,000
"reside there and may not want to leave".
Obama added that the air strikes, first launched on
August 8, would go on.
EU ministers were set to convene in Brussels on
Friday to seek unanimous approval for the shipment
of arms to Iraqi Kurds fighting the Islamic State
jihadists.
The unscheduled gathering comes after days of
forceful demands by France, whose Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius criticised EU colleagues for
remaining on holiday while besieged civilians were
being killed in Iraq.
Britain would "favourably consider" arming Kurdish
forces in their battle against Islamic State (IS)
militants in Iraq, a spokesman for the British prime
minister's office said on Thursday.
Crisis not over
Thousands of people have poured across a border
bridge into camps in Iraq's Kurdish region after
trekking through neighbouring Syria to find refuge,
most with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Some women carried exhausted children, weeping as
they reached the relative safety of the camps.
The hundreds of thousands of Yazidis, Christians,
Turkmen, Shabak and other people who have been
displaced in recent weeks have little prospect of
returning home any time soon.
Washington has ruled out boots on the ground and the
fight-back is being led Kurdish forces who, despite
Western arms deliveries, have so far contained IS
fighters rather than reclaimed large tracts of
territory.
The international community had for weeks
stressed that no effective counter-offensive could
take place without a cohesive government steering
the country.
Obama, the United Nations, Iraq's most revered
Shiite cleric and even much of his own parliamentary
bloc had made it clear that government could not be
headed by Maliki.
Observers had said Maliki had reasons to fear for
his life or at least his freedom after relinquishing
the premiership and could seek to stay in a position
of power as a protection.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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