BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister-designate Haider Al-Abadi said on Sunday during talks with Iran’s foreign minister that international efforts would be necessary to destroy militants of the Islamic State who have seized swathes of his country and of its neighbor.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, a Shiite regional power likely to wield influence over the formation of Abadi’s new cabinet, reaffirmed Tehran’s support for Iraq’s territorial unity and its fight against militants.
“Abadi pointed to the presence of many dangers posed in the region as a result of the existence of the terrorist gang [ISIS] which requires regional and international efforts to exterminate this terrorist organization,” his office said in a statement after the talks with Zarif.
The advance of ISIS through northern Iraq has alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies, prompting the first US air strikes in Iraq since US occupation forces pulled out in 2011.
Bombings across Iraq killed at least 35 people on Saturday in apparent revenge attacks after Shiite militiamen machine-gunned a Sunni mosque in Diyala Province on Friday, killing 68 worshipers in an attack that further deepens the country’s sectarian conflict.
Critics have accused Iraq’s outgoing prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki of fueling the conflict by pursuing a narrowly sectarian agenda that excluded Sunnis from positions of power and influence.
Abadi is now seeking support from Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to take on the ISIS insurgency — a policy of reaching out that Iran’s Zarif praised on Sunday. — Reuters
