PM-designate Abadi Gains Support of US, Iran
by VOA News August 12, 2014
Iraq's new prime minister-designate won endorsements from uneasy mutual allies the United States and Iran on Tuesday as he called on political leaders to end crippling feuds that have allowed Sunni militants to seize a third of the country.
Haider al-Abadi still faces opposition closer to home, where his Shi'ite party colleague Nouri al-Maliki has refused to step aside after eight years as premier that have alienated Iraq's once dominant Sunni minority and irked Washington and Tehran.
However, Shi'ite militia and army commanders long loyal to Maliki signaled their backing for the change, as did many people on the streets of Baghdad, eager for an end to fears of a further descent into sectarian and ethnic bloodletting.
European aid
Meanwhile, Europe boosted its aid for thousands of Iraqis attempting to flee the onslaught of Islamic State militants in northern Iraq.
Britain and France dropped water, food and solar lamps on Mount Sinjar Tuesday to help Yazidi refugees and other religious minorities trapped on the mountaintop.
Britain said it is sending nearly $7 million in aid to northern Iraq and deployed Tornado surveillance aircraft to get a better look at the situation on the ground.
Germany plans to send non-lethal equipment - vehicles, night-vision gear and bomb detectors - to the region, while the European Union pledged $7 million in aid.
But the EU's humanitarian aid chief, Kristlina Georgieva, warned that freeing those marooned on the mountaintop is 'less a problem of money than a problem of access.'
With the help of Kurdish forces in the region, more than 20,000 of the refugees managed to escape Sinjar in the past few days, but thousands more are still there, with water and food in short supply.
Military assistance
As Western powers and international aid agencies considered further help for tens of thousands of people driven from their homes and under threat from the Sunni militants of the Islamic State near the Syrian border, Secretary of State John Kerry urged Abadi to form a new cabinet as quickly as possible, and pledged U.S. support for Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State.
In a visit to Australia, Kerry said the goal for Iraq remains a government that represents the country's Shi'ites, Sunnis, Kurds and other minorities.
'The new Iraqi leadership has a very difficult challenge,' Kerry said.
'It has to regain the confidence of its citizens by governing inclusively, but also by taking steps to demonstrate their resolve, and we're going to continue to stand with the Iraqi people during this time of transitionl,' he added.
However, Kerry said there will be no return of U.S. combat forces to Iraq, stressing that the country is facing a fight that 'Iraqis need to join on behalf of Iraq.'
Like Western powers, Shi'ite Iran is alarmed by Sunni militants' hold in Syria and Iraq.
'Iran supports the legal process that has taken its course with respect to choosing Iraq's new prime minister,' the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the Supreme National Security Council was quoted as saying.
'Iran favors a cohesive, integrated and secure Iraq,' he said, adding an apparent appeal to Maliki to concede.
Gains Shi'ite clergy support
Abadi himself, long exiled in Britain, is seen as a far less polarizing, sectarian figure than Maliki, who is also from the Shi'ite Islamic Dawa party.
Abadi appears to have the blessing of Iraq's powerful Shi'ite clergy, a major force in the land since U.S. troops toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Iraqi state television said Abadi 'called on all political powers who believe in the constitution and democracy to unite efforts and close ranks to respond to Iraq's great challenges.'
President Fouad Massoum has given Abadi 30 days to form a coalition government.
Maliki angrily dismissed Abadi's nomination on Monday as illegal. But there was no further sign of opposition on Tuesday.
Shi'ite group urges 'self-restraint'
A statement from a major Shi'ite militia group, Asaib Ahl Haq, which has backed Maliki and reinforced the Iraqi army as it fell back from the north in June, called for an end to the legalistic arguments of the kind used by Maliki to justify his retaining power and urged 'self-restraint by all sides.'
It said leaders should 'give priority to the public interest over the private' and respect the guidance of clerical leaders - a clear reference to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's indication that he favors the removal of Maliki to address the national crisis.
While U.S. officials have been at pains not to appear to be imposing a new leadership on Iraq, three years after U.S. troops left the country, President Barack Obama was quick to welcome the appointment. Wrangling over a new government since Iraqis elected the new parliament in April has been exploited by the Islamic State to seize much of the north and west.
Obama has sent hundreds of U.S. military advisers and last week launched air strikes on the militants after they made dramatic gains against the Peshmerga forces of Iraq's autonomous ethnic Kurdish region, an ally of the Baghdad authorities.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters.
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