Kerry says Maliki will form a new Iraqi government


Secretary of State John Kerry said after meeting with Iraqi leaders on Monday that embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had pledged to form a new government by July 1. Maliki is under pressure to make his Shiite-led government more inclusive as al Qaeda-linked Sunni extremists seize more territory and press toward Baghdad. Kerry went to Iraqi Kurdistan on Tuesday to urge leaders there to be part of the new government, instead of breaking away. "If they decide to withdraw from the Baghdad political process it will accelerate a lot of the negative trends," a State Department official said. Read more at Reuters.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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