Maliki meets with US envoy amid pressure to drop prime minister nomination

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi prime ministerial candidate Nouri al-Maliki said he met with US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack on Friday as the US ramped up pressure on lawmakers to reject Maliki’s nomination for the country’s most powerful post.

In a statement, Maliki said he emphasized Iraq’s sovereignty in talks with Barrack, which has been tested by Washington’s push against his candidacy including threats by US President Donald Trump to “no longer help Iraq” if Maliki is re-elected to the post. Maliki, who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2014, is the nominee for Iraq’s powerful Shiite Coordination Framework.

The meeting came as Iraq’s political blocs continue negotiations to elect the president and prime minister, which have been stalled since November. In addition to political party divisions, the process has been further complicated by US officials’ vocal opposition to Maliki.

In a social media post on Thursday, former US deputy assistant secretary for Iraq and Iran Victoria Taylor said her recent meetings with officials in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region indicated that Iraq “needs to have a prime minister who’s accepted by the international community.”

She said US Charge d’Affaires to Iraq Joshua Harris was “urging Iraqi leaders to work together to find a new nominee” and that Maliki’s nomination could result in potential US sanctions or the loss of Iraq’s dollar account in the US Federal Reserve.

The measures would severely impact Iraq’s struggling economy, coupled with rising tariffs and falling oil prices that could impact the government’s ability to pay salaries, said Taylor, who now serves as Iraq Initiative director at the Atlantic Council.

US opposition to Maliki “remains firm”: US analyst

Taylor also met with Maliki, saying he “expressed hope that the US position might soften” despite “firm” opposition to his candidacy. She said Maliki supporters cited his cooperation with US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama “as proof that the pro-Iranian label is misleading.”

A longtime ally of Iran, Maliki’s candidacy comes as the US ramps up pressure on Tehran to end its nuclear program or face military strikes.

Taylor predicted “that the government formation will take time,” adding that “Shiite political leaders want to find a way to move forward that maintains a strong relationship with the United States.”

Maliki’s previous tenure was marred by corruption allegations and the 2014 rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, which the Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga forces defeated territorially in 2017. In a Truth Social post last month, Trump said Maliki was a “very bad choice” whose leadership led to “poverty and total chaos.”

Maliki also pushed back on US opposition to his candidacy earlier this week, telling AFP news agency that he had “absolutely no intention” to withdraw from his candidacy “out of respect for my country, its sovereignty, and its will.”

“No one has the right to say whom we can or cannot vote for,” he said.

Barrack, who also serves as US Envoy to Syria, also discussed the prime minister’s post with Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani earlier this week.

Barzani noted that “while the Coordination Framework decides on its candidate, it is important that the prime minister adheres to the constitution and the principles of partnership, balance, and consensus,” Barzani’s office said in a statement.