John Kerry to Visit Saudi Arabia on Friday

  Written by : Mohamed Abdel Fattah
Jun 26, 2014

 US Secretary of State, John Kerry , announced that he will visit Saudi Arabia on Friday. During his visit, Kerry will meet with King Abdullah and the two will discuss the situations in Iraq and Syria.

“President Obama has asked me to travel to Saudi Arabia in order to meet with His Majesty King Abdullah and to discuss regional issues, including the situation in Iraq, and how we can counter the shared threat that is posed by ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), as well as to discuss our support for the moderate opposition in Syria,” Kerry told a news conference Wednesdayon the sidelines of talks at NATO .

The United States and Saudi Arabia have both been alarmed by the success of ISIL after its jihadists captured swathes of northern Iraq alongside an amalgam of Sunni tribal and Islamist militias and members of the former ruling Baath party.

Saudi officials have said the "sectarian" policies of Baghdad's Shiite-led government are to blame for the takeover by Sunni insurgents of key cities and large swathes of the country.

Members of Saudi Arabia's ruling circle had feared that the situation in Iraq would slide toward chaos and a devastating civil war if Maliki were re-elected prime minister, which he is close to doing after his party won the largest share of seats in the April 30 parliamentary elections.

“The call to form a national emergency government is a coup against the constitution and the political process,” Maliki said in a televised address.

“The dangerous goals of forming a national emergency government are not hidden.

“It is an attempt by those who are against the constitution to eliminate the young democratic process and steal the votes of the voters,” said the Iraqi leader.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISISL) , the Sunni extremist group that has seized large swaths of Iraq's north and west in recent weeks and seeks to create an Islamic territory across both sides of the Syria-Iraq border.

The Sunni militants have captured advanced weapons, tanks and Humvees from the Iraq military that have made their way into Syria, and that fighters are crossing freely from one side to the other have alarmed the Syrian government

ISIS militants are fighting the governments on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border, and an apparent decision by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to intervene to help Maliki further tangles the already complex knot of actors in the overlapping crises.

Sources

Al Alarabiya

gulfbusiness.

al-monitor.

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