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Kerry in Baghdad to Urge Iraqis to Form New, Inclusive Government
Kerry Says ISIS Threat Could Hasten Military Action
(about 2 hours later)
BAGHDAD — Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Baghdad on Monday morning to urge the Iraqis to bridge their sectarian differences and to encourage them to form a new, inclusive government.
BAGHDAD — Winding up a day of crisis talks with Iraqi leaders, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that the Sunni militants seizing territory in Iraq had become such a threat that the United States might not wait for Iraqi politicians to form a new government before taking military action.
At the start of a series of meetings with representatives of various Iraqi factions, Mr. Kerry met with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other senior Iraqi officials, including Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister; Saadoun al-Dulaimi, the acting minister of defense; Faleh al-Fayed, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser; and Lt. Gen. Taleb Kenani, the head of the counterterrorism bureau. Mr. Kerry was accompanied by Robert S. Beecroft, the American ambassador to Iraq, and by Brett McGurk, the senior State Department adviser on Iraq.
“They do pose a threat,” Mr. Kerry said, referring to the fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “They cannot be given safe haven anywhere.”
The meeting was held at Mr. Maliki’s compound, which was the scene of an incident in December 2008 when a shoe was thrown at President George W. Bush.
“That’s why, again, I reiterate the president will not be hampered if he deems it necessary if the formation is not complete,” he added, referring to the Iraqi efforts to establish a new multisectarian government that bridges the deep divisions among the majority Shiites and minority Sunnis, Kurds and other smaller groups.
The meeting lasted about an hour and 40 minutes. As the secretary of state was being escorted to his car by Mr. Zebari after the session, Mr. Kerry said simply: “That was good.”
American officials, drawn increasingly back into a struggle that President Obama had sought to end, do not want to be seen as taking sides in a sectarian conflict. They have stressed in recent days that the establishment of an cross-sectarian Iraqi government would make it easier for the United States to provide military support for Iraq, including airstrikes.
Mr. Kerry’s next meeting was with Ammar al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric and leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite political party that is a rival of Mr. Maliki’s State of Law political coalition. Mr. Hakim is the grandson of a former grand ayatollah and the son of one of the founders of the Supreme Council party.
Mr. Kerry flew in a C-17 military aircraft to Iraq on Monday from Amman, Jordan, to try to hasten that political process. He began his day with a meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq and some of his top security aides, which lasted 100 minutes.
Mr. Hakim was wearing a tan cleric’s robe and a black turban.
Mr. Kerry then met in rapid succession with Ammar al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite political party that is a rival of Mr. Maliki’s State of Law political coalition, and with Osama al-Nujaifi, the Sunni speaker of Iraq’s Parliament. Mr. Kerry also met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurd who serves as Iraq’s foreign minister.
“I’m happy to see you,” Mr. Kerry said. " I have great memories of visiting with your father. I know your family has such a long and distinguished role in the politics and life of Iraq.”
In a news conference after the meetings at the heavily fortified American Embassy, Mr. Kerry reported that he had urged Iraqi politicians to move quickly to form a new government and that they had agreed they needed to act fact.
After meeting with Mr. Maliki and Mr. Hakim, Mr. Kerry met with Osama al-Nujaifi, a high-ranking Sunni official who is the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament.
But there has been intensive jockeying for power not just among the main Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs but also within them. Experts have warned that the government formation could drag on for months.
Mr. Nujaifi is from Mosul, and his brother, Atheel, is the governor of Nineveh Province. Mosul is the capital of the province, and Atheel al-Nujaifi was forced to flee as the forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, advanced.
Iraqi leaders, Mr. Kerry noted, had affirmed the need to convene Parliament by July to begin the constitutional process of forming the new government as required from the April parliamentary elections. The process is supposed to begin with the selection of parliament speaker, a post that has traditionally gone to a Sunni, and will then move to picking a new president, a position that has traditionally gone to a Kurd. Then a prime minister will be picked: either Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, or one of his Shiite rivals.
“These are difficult times for Iraq and the world if we don’t cooperate,” Mr. Nujaifi said at the start of the meeting, speaking through an interpreter.
While the political consultations continue behind closed doors, ISIS has become a growing regional danger. Its fighters have basically erased Iraq’s western border with Syria, which is expected to strengthen their position there. They have also taken the town of Rutba in western Iraq, which sits astride the road to Jordan and could head south from there to Saudi Arabia.
“Well, I’m here obviously to convey to you President Obama’s and the American people’s commitment to help Iraq,” Mr. Kerry said. “We have two tracks as you know: One is the security situation and the other is the political situation. And we need to work them in parallel.”
Within Iraq, American officials say, ISIS has set its sights on destroying the Shiite shrine in Samarra, which would likely lead to an explosion of sectarian violence in Iraq. An attack on the shrine in early 2006 escalated a wave of sectarian killings that was not reduced until the United States troop surge in 2007 and 2008.
Mr. Kerry then added that the top priority was “for the Iraqi people, for the integrity of the country, its borders, for its sovereignty,” and he said that ISIS was a threat to “all of us.”
“Clearly, everyone understands that Samarra is an important line,” Mr. Kerry said. " Historically, an assault on Samarra created enormous problems in Iraq. That is something that we all do not want to see happen again. And so the president and the team, the entire security team, are watching this movement and these events very, very closely.”
The insurgents, Mr. Nujaifi responded, were “a threat to the entire world, and we have to confront it through direct military operations and through political reforms so that we can inject new hope into our own people so that they can support the political process and the unity of Iraq.”
So great are the concerns that Mr. Kerry stressed on Monday that if American action is taken soon — President Obama has said that he is considering airstrikes — it should not be interpreted as a gesture of political support for Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government, but rather as a strike against the ISIS militants.
The United States’ formal position, which Mr. Kerry underscored at a joint news conference on Sunday with his Egyptian counterpart, is that it is not in the business of picking Iraq’s leaders.
Such a decision by Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry said, should not be considered to be an act of “support for the existing prime minister or for one sect or another.”
But American officials say that it is imperative that the Iraqis quickly form a new government to present a united front against the Sunni militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, who have been strengthening their hold on northern and western Iraq.
President Obama is considering carrying out airstrikes against the militants, but the White House does not want to take sides in a sectarian clash in Iraq and, thus, is urging the Iraqis to pull together.
“The United States would like to see the Iraqi people find leadership that is prepared to represent all of the people of Iraq,” Mr. Kerry said during the Sunday stop in Cairo.
Mr. Kerry has made frequent trips to Jerusalem and Ramallah, in the West Bank, in his pursuit of a Middle East peace agreement. But his trip here, which was not announced in advance, is only his second to Baghdad as secretary of state.
Mr. Kerry last visited Baghdad in March 2013 for what he called “spirited” talks over Iraq’s reluctance to press Iran to stop sending arms to Syria through Iraqi airspace.
In recent days, the United States has walked a fine line, emphasizing that it is not intervening in Iraqi internal politics, a policy that officials fear might backfire. But privately, many American officials have expressed skepticism that Mr. Maliki is capable of leading a broad-based government.
“It is up to the people of Iraq to choose their future leadership,” Mr. Kerry said Sunday. “But we do note that the Kurds have expressed dissatisfaction with the current situation, the Sunnis have expressed dissatisfaction with the current situation, and some Shia have expressed dissatisfaction.”
Mr. Kerry added that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric, has also said that it is important that the Iraqi government not repeat the mistakes of the past.
The Obama administration withdrew the last American troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, and a major question is how much leverage the United States still has on the political dynamics there.
Complicating the situation, officials say, is that new facts have been established on the ground. Following the gains by ISIS fighters, Kurdish forces have moved into Kirkuk and a number of other disputed areas.
Mr. Obama announced last week that he planned to send as many as 300 military advisers to help Iraq counter the ISIS militants. But the legal protections they would have for this mission were still being worked out, American officials said.
Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said that Mr. Kerry “will meet with Iraqi leaders from across the political spectrum, including Prime Minister Maliki, to discuss the crisis in Iraq.”
“He will discuss U.S. actions underway to assist Iraq as it confronts this threat” from Sunni militants, she added, and will “urge Iraqi leaders to move forward as quickly as possible with its government formation process to forge a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis.”
