BAGHDAD: Nouri Al-Maliki, the front-runner to be Iraq’s next prime minister, met with US envoy Tom Barrack on Friday. He refused to drop out of the race even though the US threatened to stop backing the country if he returned to the role.
Barrack, who is the US ambassador to Turkey and the US envoy to Syria, has been to Iraq several times recently to meet with high-ranking authorities. In a brief statement, Maliki’s media office said that the PM candidate highlighted “the need to respect Iraq’s sovereignty and the will of its people” during the meeting.
He also talked on how important it is to “support the democratic process and make politics more stable” in Iraq. It wasn’t apparent what Barrack said to Maliki. Last month, President Donald Trump got involved in Iraq’s business by giving them an ultimatum: if Al-Maliki, a two-time former prime minister with close ties to Iran, was named Iraq’s next prime minister, the US would stop helping the country.
Trump’s ultimatum confused Iraqi authorities, especially those in the Coordination Framework, which is a ruling alliance of Shiite organizations with different levels of ties to Iran that chose Maliki. Earlier this week, Al-Maliki told AFP that he would not get out of the race and that he would also try to calm Washington’s fears.
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