Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has conceded in talks with British Foreign Secretary William Hague that political measures are needed alongside military action to repel a Sunni insurgent offensive that is threatening to tear the country apart.
Maliki’s office says he told Hague in Baghdad on June 26 that authorities must continue "following up on the political process and holding a meeting of the parliament and electing a head of parliament and a president and forming the government."
Hague called on Iraq’s Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurdish leaders to unite in the face of the offensive led by extremists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
A day earlier, Maliki -- a member of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority -- rejected calls for a national unity government, saying the call “constitutes a coup against the constitution and the political process."