President names new Prime Minister in Iraq

Baghdad: Iraqi President Fuad Masum on Monday tasked deputy parliamentary speaker Haidar al-Abadi with forming a government during a brief ceremony broadcast on state 

television.

 

“The country is now in your hands,” Mr Masum told Mr Abadi, who was selected as nominee for premier instead of incumbent Noor al-Maliki by the Shiite National Alliance parliamentary bloc. Abadi, a member of Maliki's Dawa party who is viewed as close to the two-term premier, was communications minister in the interim government following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, after spending much of the dictator's rule in exile.

 

Mr Maliki, who has been in power since 2006, did not react. According to the White House, Abadi told US Vice President Joe Biden he intended “to move expeditiously to form a broad-based, inclusive government capable of countering the threat” posed by the Islamic State.

 

Many had come to see Mr Maliki as partly responsible for the violence because it exposed the weakness of the armed forces.