Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


               Iraqi PM to Sue President as He Seeks to Keep Post

   by VOA News

   Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says he will file a lawsuit Monday
   against President Fouad Massoum, alleging violations of the country's
   constitution as he tries to stay in the post he has held since 2006.

   Maliki, whose coalition won the most seats in April elections, says the
   president violated the constitution by failing to name a new prime
   minister from the country's largest parliamentary bloc by a Sunday
   deadline.

   The United Nations and United States have expressed support for Massoum
   and the selection of a prime minister who will lead an inclusive new
   Iraqi government.

   Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special representative for Iraq, said
   Monday the president is acting in line with the constitution and called
   on Iraqi security forces to refrain from actions that could be seen at
   interfering in the political process.

   His statement came as police officials reported large deployments of
   special forces in key sections of Baghdad, including the so-called
   Green Zone that houses Iraq's major institutions.

   U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said forming a government is
   critical for Iraq's stability and urged Maliki to avoid inflaming the
   situation.

   Hours earlier, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the U.S.
   rejects efforts to affect the political process through "coercion or
   manipulation."

   U.S. officials and many Western analysts say Prime Minister Maliki, a
   Shi'ite, has failed to unify the divided country since taking office.
   They describe him as increasingly unacceptable to Iraq's Sunni Muslims,
   to Kurds and to many of his fellow Shi'ites.

   Maliki under fire

   Washington seems to be losing patience with Maliki, who has placed
   Shi'ite political loyalists in key positions in the army and military
   and drawn comparisons with executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, the
   man he plotted against from exile for years.

   President Obama has urged Iraqi politicians to form a more inclusive
   government that can counter the growing threat from the Islamic State.

   But Maliki, an unknown when he first took office in 2006 with help from
   the United States, is digging in.

   The Islamic State has capitalized on the political deadlock and
   sectarian tensions, making fresh gains after arriving in the north of
   the country in June from Syria.

   The group, which sees Iraq's majority Shi'ites as infidels who deserve
   to be killed, has ruthlessly moved through one town after another,
   using tanks and heavy weapons it seized from soldiers who have fled in
   their thousands.

   Islamic State militants have killed hundreds of Iraq's minority
   Yazidis, burying some alive and taking women as slaves, an Iraqi
   government minister said on Sunday, as U.S. warplanes again bombed the
   insurgents.

   Human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani accused the Sunni Muslim
   militants - who have ordered the community they regard as "devil
   worshippers" to convert to Islam or die - of celebrating what he called
   a "a vicious atrocity."

   No independent confirmation was available of the killings. Thousands of
   Yazidis have taken refuge in the past week on the arid heights of Mount
   Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

   The bloodshed could increase pressure on Western powers to do more to
   help tens of thousands of people, including many from religious and
   ethnic minorities, who have fled the Islamic State's offensive.

   The U.S. Central Command said drones and jet aircraft had hit Islamic
   State armed trucks and mortar positions near Erbil, the capital of the
   autonomous Kurdish region which had been relatively stable throughout
   the past decade until insurgents swept across northwestern Iraq this
   summer.

   That marked a third successive day of U.S. air strikes. Central Command
   said that they were aimed at protecting Kurdish peshmerga forces as
   they face off against the militants near Erbil, the site of a U.S.
   consulate and a U.S.-Iraqi joint military operations center.

   The Islamists' advance in the past week has forced tens of thousands to
   flee, threatened Erbil and provoked the first U.S. attacks since
   Washington withdrew troops from Iraq in late 2011, nearly nine years
   after invading to oust Saddam Hussein.

   Some material in this report was provided by Reuters.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/iraqi-pm-to-sue-president-as-he-seeks
   -to-keep-post/2409331.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/iraqi-pm-to-sue-president-as-he-seeks-to-keep-post/2409331.html