Ukraine in Arabic | Kerry presses Maliki as Iraq loses control of borders
Sunni tribes took the Turaibil border crossing, the only legal crossing point between Iraq and Jordan, after Iraqi security forces fled, Iraqi and Jordanian security sources said.
The tribes were negotiating to hand the post over to insurgents from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant who took control of two main crossings with Syria over the weekend.
Kurdish forces control a third border post with Syria in the north, leaving central government troops with no presence along the entire Western frontier which includes some of the most important east-west trade routes in the Middle East.
For the insurgents, capturing the frontier is a dramatic step towards the goal of erasing the modern border altogether and building a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Washington, which withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 after an occupation that followed the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, has been struggling to help Iraq contain an insurgency led by Isil, an Al Qaeda offshoot which seized northern towns this month.
US President Barack Obama agreed last week to send up to 300 special forces troops as advisers, but has held off from providing air strikes and ruled out redeploying ground troops.
There was little small talk when Kerry met Maliki, the two men seated in chairs in a room with other officials. At one point Kerry looked at an Iraqi official and said, “How are you?”
The meeting lasted one hour and 40 minutes, after which Kerry was escorted to his car by Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. As Kerry got in, he said: “That was good.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday accused Washington of trying to regain control of the country it once occupied - a charge Kerry denied.
Iraqis are due to form a new government after an election in April. Maliki’s list won the most seats in parliament but would still require allies to win a majority.
Kerry said on Sunday the United States would not choose who rules in Baghdad, but added that Washington had noted the dissatisfaction among Kurds, Sunnis and some Shias with Maliki’s leadership. He emphasised that the United States wanted Iraqis to “find a leadership that was prepared to be inclusive and share power”.
Senior Iraqi politicians, including at least one member of Maliki’s own ruling list, have said that the message that Washington would be open to Maliki leaving power has been delivered in diplomatic language to Iraqi leaders.
Recent meetings between Maliki and American officials have been described as tense. According to a Western diplomat briefed on the conversations by someone attending the meetings, US diplomats have informed Maliki he should accept leaving if he cannot gather a majority in parliament for a third term. US officials have contested that such a message was delivered.
Jordanian army sources said Jordan’s troops had been put in a state of alert in recent days along the 181-km (112-mile) border with Iraq, redeploying in some areas as part of steps to ward off “any potential or perceived security threats”.
The Jordan border post was in the hands of Sunni tribesmen. An Iraqi tribal figure said there was a chance it would soon be passed to control of the militants, who seized the nearby crossing to Syria on the Damascus-Baghdad highway on Sunday.
He said he was mediating with Isil in a “bid to spare blood and make things safer for the employees of the crossing. We are receiving positive messages from the militants.”
Baghdad is Kerry’s third stop in a tour of Middle East capitals to emphasise the threat the insurgency poses to the region and call on Iraq’s allies to use their influence to press Baghdad to govern more inclusively. He has also been warning Iraq’s neighbours they need to step up efforts to cut off cross-border funding to the militants.
khaleejtimes
