Maliki warned against coup
Beirut – The United States has warned Nouri al-Maliki against using force to cling to power after a Shia rival was appointed to succeed him as prime minister.
President Fouad Massoum, an ethnic Kurd, announced the appointment of Haider al-Abadi after the largest coalition of Shia political parties nominated him to form a government.
Pressure has been mounting on Maliki to step down since fighters from the Islamic State, also known as Isis, captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, nearly three months ago and began their lightning sweep through northern Iraq.
His divisive sectarian policies have been widely seen as responsible for alienating Iraq’s Sunni minority and creating the conditions for takeover.
Maliki, however, has shown no inclination to stand down, insisting that he remains the country’s rightful leader after April’s election in which his bloc won the largest number of seats.
On Monday he made a fiery televised speech threatening legal action against Massoum for failing to appoint him prime minister by that evening’s deadline.
Special forces and militias loyal to Maliki were deployed on the streets of Baghdad, sealing off the Green Zone, the capital’s centre of government. The move was widely seen as a show of force intended to intimidate Massoum and other rival politicians, but it also raised fears that Maliki might attempt a coup to stay in power.
In unusually pointed language, US Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned Maliki against using force, warning that international aid would be halted if he tried to cling to power.
‘‘The government formation process is critical in terms of sustaining stability and calm in Iraq and our hope is that Mr Maliki will not stir those waters,’’ he said.
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‘‘One thing all Iraqis need to know: there will be little international support of any kind whatsoever for anything that deviates from the legitimate constitution process that is in place and being worked on now.’’
Such international support includes the kind of military aid that the Iraqi Government has been given to push back the advance of Sunni militants.
The US has said it will not launch airstrikes on Baghdad’s behalf until a new, more inclusive, government is in place. It regards the airstrikes it is undertaking in northern Iraq as an exceptional measure on behalf of the Kurds and to prevent the massacre of beleaguered Christian and Yazidi minorities as well as to protect American personnel.
Maliki’s son-in-law, Hussein alMaliki, called Abadi’s nomination as prime minister illegal and said it would be challenged in the courts. ‘‘We will not stay silent,’’ he said.
Abadi is a Maliki loyalist and a member of the Dawa party. He was nominated by the National Alliance, a large coalition of Shia parties of which Maliki’s State of Law bloc is a member.
Maliki insists that the State of Law alone should decide the nomination but the choice of a successor from his own party exposes how much support he has lost over the course of the three-month Islamic State offensive.
State television showed footage of Massoum shaking hands with Abadi and telling him: ‘‘I hope you will be successful in forming a broader-based government.’’
Abadi, who spent decades in exile in Britain during the rule of Saddam Hussein, called on Iraqis to unite against the Islamic State’s ‘‘barbaric’’ campaign.
‘‘We all have to co-operate to stand against this terrorist campaign launched on Iraq,’’ he said.