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Iraqi leaders on track for cooperation

The atmosphere of cooperation currently prevailing among the Iraqi presidency, government and parliament should turn into a long-term project leading Iraq toward a better future.
Salim al-Jabouri (R), new speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, and Shi'ite deputy speaker Haider Abadi (L), a member of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law bloc, attend a news conference in Baghdad, July 15, 2014. Iraqi politicians named Jabouri, a moderate Sunni Islamist, as speaker of parliament on Tuesday, a long-delayed first step towards a power-sharing government urgently needed to save the state from disintegration in the face of a Sunni uprising. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad (IRAQ -

Relations among the top three Iraqi leaders — Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, President Fouad Massoum and parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri — are thus far on the right path, with the tense atmosphere that plagued such relations over the past years having given way to friendlier interactions and a desire for cooperation and integration. This cooperation, however, should not be limited to fodder for the media. It should be integrated into the working context and turned into mechanisms that will allow these authorities to guide the country past the danger currently threatening it.

It is clear that cooperation between Abadi and Jabouri was positive early on and contributed to completing the formation of a government with the selection of ministers of defense and interior. Notably, neither man tried to blame the other for the delay for weeks in the selection of these last two ministers. This set the stage for filling their positions, which had be left vacant throughout the second term of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

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