Despite mounting pressure to step aside, Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki vowed Friday not to abandon his bid for another term as prime minister and pledged to stay on until the Sunni militants who have overrun much of the country are defeated.
The sharp words are certain to prolong the political impasse gripping Iraq, which is facing urgent demands for a new government that can hold the nation together in the face of an onslaught that threatens to cleave it in three along ethnic and sectarian lines.
The offensive by militants who have swept across much of northern and western Iraq since last month has been fueled in part by grievances among the country’s Sunni Muslim minority with al-Maliki and his Shiite-led government.
The U.S. has urged the formation of a more inclusive government but has not explicitly called for al-Maliki to bow out.
In what has been seen as a rebuke of al-Maliki, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has pressed lawmakers to quickly form a new government that can confront the militant threat and unite the country. Lawmakers failed in their first session of parliament on Tuesday to make any progress.
On Friday, al-Sistani lamented the inability of political leaders to agree on a new prime minister and urged them to redouble their efforts, a cleric who represents him told worshippers in a sermon in the holy city of Karbala.
Al-Maliki’s State of law bloc won the most parliamentary seats in April elections, which would traditionally make him the leading candidate to head a new government. But al-Maliki failed to gain a majority in the legislature, meaning he needs allies to form a government.
Al-Maliki made clear Friday his determination to stay on for a third consecutive term — or at least until he has crushed the insurgency
“I will never give up the nomination for the post of prime minister,” he said in a statement issued by his office.
He framed the debate over his future in democratic terms, reminding Iraqis that the voters handed his bloc the most seats in parliament and declaring that he must “stand by them during this crisis that Iraq is passing through.”
Al-Maliki said that to pull out now “while facing terrorist organizations that are against Islam and humanity would show weakness instead of carrying out my legitimate, national and moral responsibility.”
Iraq’s military claimed progress in that fight Friday, saying troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships captured the village of Awja — the birthplace of former dictator Saddam Hussein — south of Tikrit. The push through Awja is part of an offensive whose ultimate aim is to retake Tikrit.
Military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said 50 militants were killed in the fighting. The toll could not be independently verified.
Also Friday, more than 40 Indian nurses who were trapped in territory captured by al-Baghdadi’s group were released and crossed into Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region, authorities said.
They will be flown to India on an aircraft arranged by their government, said Oommen Chandy, chief minister of India’s Kerala state.
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