Maliki Says Terrorism in Iraq 'Directly Related' to Syria
In an exclusive written interview with Al-Monitor, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said, “The increasing growth of extremist groups” is the deeper problem in Syria and warned “against the narrow, revenge-based view that controls some of the region's countries."
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in an exclusive written interview with Al-Monitor, said that Iraq supports a “transitional government that will manage affairs until elections are held and a constitution is adopted” in Syria.
Maliki, who opposed a US strike on Syria and any outside military intervention there, said that he told US Vice President Joe Biden two years ago that Syria “would not be resolved in two years, or even more, and that the social situation, the political and population structure and the sensitive region make it difficult to predict the end of an armed conflict of such cruelty and ferocity.”
