(10 Sep 2014) US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday on a visit aimed at pressing Iraq's Shiite leader to quickly deliver more power to wary Sunnis, or jeopardise any hope of defeating the Islamic State group.
Kerry landed in the Iraqi capital just two days after newly sworn Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi seated his top government ministers, a crucial step toward restoring stability in a nation where security has spiraled out of control since the beginning of the year.
Kerry met with Iraq's speaker of parliament Salim al-Jabouri. Earlier he also met with other senior Iraqi officials.
The trip marks the first high-level US meeting with al-Abadi since he become prime minister, and it aimed to symbolise the Obama administration's support for Iraq nearly three years after US troops left the war-torn country.
But it also signaled to al-Abadi, a Shiite Muslim, that the US was watching to make sure he gives Iraqi Sunnis more control over their local power structures and security forces, as promised.
Al-Abadi's predecessor, former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, for years shut Sunnis out of power and refused to pay tribal militias salaries or give them government jobs and in turn sowed widespread resentment that Islamic State extremists seized on as a recruiting tool.
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