Kerry Visits Baghdad as Iraq Grapples With Political Strife

Secretary of State John Kerry exhorted Iraq’s contentious political factions to quickly resolve internal wrangling that has distracted them from the fight against Islamic State during an unannounced visit to the country on Friday 8 April.

In a news conference in Baghdad after meetings with Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi and other senior Iraqi officials, the U.S. chief diplomat said the militant group had suffered clear setbacks from the U.S.-led military campaign but remained a potent threat in the region and in its ability to launch terror attacks elsewhere.

“It is important to have a unified and functioning government as rapidly as possible in order to move forward, so that all of these operations are not affected and so that we give confidence to the coalition,” Kerry told reporters.

Kerry arrived in Baghdad on Friday morning 8 April to show U.S. backing for PM Haider al-Abadi, whose government faces a crumbling economy with rock-bottom oil prices, a political crisis and a grinding war against the jihadists of the Islamic State. His surprise visit, followed by one in Kabul, followed talks with GCC foreign ministers in Bahrain and comes more than 18 months into the U.S.-led military campaign against the extremist group.

“Daesh is on the defensive. That is clear,” Kerry said, adding that the U.S. and its allies “take very seriously the threat that it still poses,” he said.

The strength of Islamic State fighters, combined with slow progress in transforming Iraqi security forces into an effective deterrent, has led Washington to assume a prominent role in the fight against the extremist group, comments The Wall Street Journal.

By official numbers, the U.S. has 3,870 troops in Iraq, officials said. But that figure doesn’t include temporary deployments and the effects of rotating American military units in and out of the country. With those factors, the total number of U.S. troops is more than 4,000. Senior U.S. military officials have recommended that President Barack Obama send more troops.

Kerry said military officials have discussed additional operations, but said adding more troops in the country would come at the request of the Iraqi government. “There was no request from Prime Minister Abadi today for some new infusion of troops at this point in time, nor did we discuss that,” he said.

With the help of U.S. training and a U.S.-led multinational air campaign, Iraqi security forces have taken back control of about 40 percent of the territory the group once held, including the provincial capitals of Ramadi and Tikrit. But an offensive to recapture control of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, which fell to Islamic State in 2014 after only a few days of resistance, has been put off for the time being.

In meetings with officials in Baghadad, including Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Council of Representatives Speaker Saleem al-Jabouri and the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechrivan Barzani, Kerry also stressed the importance of rebuilding Iraq and reconstructing damaged cities so that displaced populations could return.

He said Friday that he also had raised the topic with Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers in Bahrain on Thursday 7 and said president Obama would do the same with his Gulf Arab counterparts in Riyadh later this month at a summit on regional security.

Before Kerry left Iraq, he announced that the U.S. would provide nearly $155 million in additional humanitarian aid for displaced Iraqis (see fact sheet below).

In the latest bout of political upheaval in Iraq, PM Abadi shook up his cabinet and proposed a new slate of ministers to parliament last week. He has been under pressure from pro-reform protests led by the prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been demanding a technocratic government to root out corruption.

Kerry said he didn’t come to Iraq to mediate the political conflict, but “as a supporter of Iraq and Prime Minister Abadi and their government as they address enormous security, economic and political challenges.”

Plummeting oil prices, a major source of government revenue, have hampered the anti-Islamic State campaign, U.S. officials said.

Although Sadr called off his weeks-long protest in the capital after Abadi announced his cabinet shake-up, the premier’s political troubles were far from over as Kerry set down in Baghdad for his first visit since September 2014.

Abadi’s proposal to trim his cabinet from 22 ministers to 16 and keep only his defense and interior ministers (one Sunni and one Shiite) must be approved by parliament. The vote is expected next week, and Sadr has said he would press for a no-confidence vote if the plan failed to win support.

Abadi’s ministerial candidates have been denounced by some members of parliament, including members of his own political party, as corrupt or unqualified for political office. Two candidates have since withdrawn their names, while five were deemed unqualified by parliamentary committees.

On Friday 8, widespread public anger and frustration with the government corruption and inefficiency were evident again, as thousands of protesters gathered in Baghdad to hear Ammar al-Hakim, head of the major Shiite political party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, criticize the narrow scope of the government’s reform efforts.

[Based on https://on.wsj.com/1RKnq8c , augmented]

Comment: Observers have noted that Iran-backed Shiite militias and their political supporters have tone down their anti-U.S. rhetoric. They have proved for the moment unable to take Fallujah back fro the IS.


Secretary's Kerry's Remarks With Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari Before Their Meeting

Foreign Minister's Villa, Baghdad, Iraq, April 8, 2016

FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JAAFARI: (Via interpreter) You visited the library, I think, Mr. Secretary, the last time.

SECRETARY KERRY: Been here before. I visited your library, yes.
(...)
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JAAFARI: (Via interpreter) And that caused me a problem with Vice President Biden. (Laughter.) And he said that you - "I visited you in 2005 and you didn't show me that library, that - you showed it to others." Because John McCain, when he came here, right away, I showed him the library.

SECRETARY KERRY: Showed him the library, good.
(...)
SECRETARY KERRY: (Laughter.) Did you give him a book? He gave me a book the first time.

FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JAAFARI: (Via interpreter) I will give you more than a book. (Laughter.) In English - in English, you are - I know that you are a good reader and read a lot.

Before - I did not know you before, of course, as an intellectual. During the presidential - your presidential candidacy at that time, I did not know you very well. But now, as I know you as the Secretary of State, I know how intellectual you are.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, thank you. I have to hide that with our - no, I'm joking. (Laughter.)
(...)
SECRETARY KERRY: (...) But Mr. Minister, I'm happy to visit with you again. This is obviously a very critical time here in Iraq and in the region, and you and I have been working on a lot of different issues for the last few years. So it's good of you to come and be able to visit.

FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JAAFARI: (Via interpreter) I receive you here in my house a second time. And I have to appreciate your efforts in that (inaudible) because I know you as the Secretary of State and you are definitely energetic. And of course, that (inaudible) conferences that I met you in. I met you in conferences in New York, Paris, and Jeddah. And I'm sure that you are aware of the recent development in the political process here (inaudible).
(Audio ends.)

https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/04/255605.htm


Secretary's Remarks: Meets With Embassy Baghdad Staff

In addition to Ambassador Stewart Jones, the meeting was attended by several top officials including Assistant Secretay Anne Patterson and Special Envoy Brett McGurk.

It was reported that the commercial and economics section have restarted and refounded the American Chamber of Commerce and achieved a $1.1 billion GE Power generation deal, and they negotiated the famous Mosul Dam contract. The refugee team has eliminated the backlog of SIV immigrant visa applications and is now doubling the production of the (inaudible) IV issuance - immigrant visa issuance. And I'm sure there are some other people I've forgotten: the terrific OSC-I which has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars in military equipment; the political section, which has made unprecedented inroads into provincial politics and has helped organize the tribal forces.

Extracts from what Secretary Kerry said:

"I just calculated - I was over in the quarters having meetings with Speaker Jabouri, and it occurred to me that I have been coming here for 13 years on and off. That's a long time for one particular place to focus, and I'm sure that all of you feel that. And I want to second what Stu just said to you. The accomplishments of this embassy are absolutely extraordinary. It's one of our largest embassies in the world, 500 folks here working directly - not to mention the people here, 75 or 80 TDYers, people who come through, the unbelievable number of missions that you just heard Stu refer to, whether it's the Vice President of the United States, the President, or the congressional delegations, the constant traffic (inaudible) numbers - so we've got hundreds if not thousands of contractors here working to make this place a success story.

"And what's clear to me is there are few places in the world where the outcome is as important as outcome here. You guys get to get up every single day and go to work knowing - I hope that you know as of today, I hope that we really focus in on this - the degree to which you are privileged to be able to really make a difference of enormous consequence.

"Daesh is as evil an entity as I have ever come across in my entire lifetime. You'd have to struggle to write the script for what they do. And it wouldn't strike you probably to again begin to have 21 people on the beach be beheaded or some guy burned alive in a cage, or kids encouraged, 15 years old, to walk up to a bunch of other kids who are getting their trophies for soccer season and blow everybody to smithereens. The perversity of these folks, destroying history, culture, Palmyra, knocking apart the thousands of years old Roman arch, for instance, chopping the head off the 80-year-old professor who spent a lifetime preserving those antiquities, and killing Yezidis, Catholics, Protestants, Christians, Jews, Ismaili, whatever, because of who they are, before they've even (inaudible) because they're not them, because they don't want to be as depraved and as sick, as criminal, and as without any redeeming quality whatsoever. I've never seen anything like it, and nor have you.

"Well, they tried to move all the way to Baghdad, as we know. When I was here last time we were in the center of a storm. And I remember being here and meeting with the ambassador at the time, and we talked about whether or not Baghdad could hold and was the Iraqi military going to be able to stand up, and black flags flying over the Toyotas and on captured armored vehicles as they marched through Mosul and down into the rest of Anbar over a period of time. And it was a courageous decision by the President of the United States, who said that we're not going to just stand by, we're not going to let all that we've invested in and everything that we fought for just go down the tube to a bunch of criminal thugs.

"And so we started the bombing campaign, and from there we built up a 65, 66 now nation coalition that is working around the world to prevent people from flying one place to another, to deal with the social media and begin to counter the messaging of Daesh, to be able to appeal to the real Islam, to define itself as the beautiful religion that it, in fact, is, not as this absolutely hijacked, perverted sense that they try to present. And all of these efforts now are coming home with success.

"Daesh is on the run, folks. They may still be in Mosul; they're still in Hit, though not for many more days. And there are - there's a tough fight ahead of us. But they have not taken any territory and held it in this country since last May. And the fact is their leaders are being eliminated from the battlefield on a daily basis, at least an average of one every three days, and their war minister and their finance minister, and so forth. And as we continue and you continue to do the training job and work with the Iraqi Security Forces and upgrade their capacity to get out there, they will take this fight, and we will support them.

"Today, when I met with Prime Minister Abadi, he made it crystal clear that the priority is Mosul. And right now there's another challenge on the horizon, which is a different kind obviously, and that's the economic challenge because of the price of oil and a budget that was calculated at about 45 bucks a barrel, which is lower than normal also and had a deficit of about 20 billion, is now an even bigger deficit. And so they're cutting and cutting, but we have to make sure that they won't have to cut so as to destroy all of the progress that everybody here has worked for. So this is a monumental challenge, and we are talking in Washington about how we can help on the economic front as well as some of these other fronts.

"So I - if we cannot defeat Daesh in all of the places we need to defeat it, if we don't defeat it in each place individually, and that means we have to destroy it in Iraq in order to be successful in Syria, and we have to destroy it in Syria in order to be successful in Libya and in Yemen and in the various places where it has converted people to its cause. The principal reason for that conversion, folks, is success. They were able to promote a narrative that they were on the march and that they were inevitable and then in the announcing of their caliphate they were the future. And that narrative has now been destroyed and being destroyed - not fully destroyed in the minds of everybody out there, but it is destroyed in terms of real context and truth, and it empowers us to go out and fight back.

"In Saudi Arabia, they're opening a new center to be able to respond on social media, to get clerics and mullahs and imams and grand muftis and others to speak about Islam. Same thing in the Emirates, where they've opened a center called the Sawab Center, which has people speaking back and putting out the true stories of what Daesh is doing. In Malaysia, they're going to open a center, in other places. So the fight back against them is actually doing to endure to our benefit well beyond Daesh, because there are other extremist groups out there, as you know, in Syria whether it's Ahrar al-Sham or Jaysh al-Islam, or run through a list, Nusrah, Jabat al-Nusrah and so forth - and we are also going after them at the same time.

"What's interesting is, even though we have serious differences with the Russians, we are finding cooperation with the Russians now in terms of the cessation of hostilities, the political process, and trying to find a way forward hopefully to be able to combat Daesh and eliminate them even faster.

"Now, there are a lot of other things happening here, I know. It's not just all about - all the normal things that an embassy does, you're doing at the same time. And all of the people-to-people programs, all of the efforts to manage the economy, the economic efforts, the education - all the things that we do. So I just want to say on behalf of President Obama and Vice President Biden, myself, and the whole team that are involved in the great work of diplomacy, we are so proud of you, so grateful to you, for your commitment, for being here - many of you away from families. It's a hardship post. It's difficult. You can't run around and do things that you do in normal posts. So this is a sacrifice, and it's really what makes America great. It's what makes our country special. It's what makes being a part of the diplomatic family and part of the State Department, I think, even more special. And because of it, I am so proud and privileged to be able to serve as Secretary of State, so proud of what we are accomplishing during this period of time.

"And my encouragement to you, as I say thank you to you, is to keep up the great work, help us get this job done, and you will have contributed to a major mark in the modern history of relationships between countries and how we resolve conflicts. And that's a pretty darn good thing to have accomplished in a lifetime."

https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/04/255632.htm


New Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq

April 8, 2016

Today, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States is providing nearly $155 million in additional humanitarian assistance to displaced and conflict-affected Iraqis within Iraq and throughout the region who are in urgent need of support. This new funding brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance for the Iraq humanitarian response to more than $778 million since the start of Fiscal Year 2014.

Since January 2014, more than 3.4 million Iraqis have been displaced. Out of a total population of 33 million, the UN estimates that 10 million people across the country are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including an estimated three million living in ISIL-held territory. More than one million school-aged Iraqi children, or 20 percent nationwide, are out of school.

U.S. humanitarian assistance, provided from the Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration through the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and other implementing partners, will help to provide for the urgent needs of millions of vulnerable individuals. Through UNHCR, and a number of international organizations and non-governmental organizations, this contribution will help offer shelter, protection, core relief items, camp coordination and management assistance; it will also provide much-needed water and sanitation, health care, and other vital food and non-food items. In addition to assisting conflict-affected Iraqis within Iraq, UNHCR also assists Iraqi refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Syria.

This funding also will support UNICEF's goal to increase access to safe learning spaces, quality education, and sustained psychosocial support for the most vulnerable children, and to help meet UNICEF's targets of providing 550,000 displaced children with learning materials, assisting 22,330 displaced children with access to learning, and training 5,000 teachers.

Through other implementing partners, this contribution will support expanded child protection efforts in Baghdad, Diyala, Dohuk, Erbil, Kerbala, Kirkuk, Najaf, and Babil governorates which are estimated to reach more than 40,000 beneficiaries. This expansion will include additional protection monitoring focused on child protection issues and needs, and the establishment of three child friendly spaces offering psychosocial activities, protection monitoring, referrals, case management, and capacity building.

Through USAID's Office of Food for Peace, the United States will provide assistance that will enable the World Food Program (WFP) to locally and regionally procure food and provide voucher assistance to internally displaced people within Iraq. This contribution will allow WFP to provide family food rations for 1 million beneficiaries for 2? months and food vouchers for 370,000 beneficiaries for one month. This contribution also provides WFP with 589 metric tons of immediate response rations for as many as 140,000 beneficiaries per month for three months. These immediate response rations are provided to newly displaced persons during their first 72 hours of displacement, as well as those households reached through the Rapid Response Mechanism in hard-to-reach areas of Iraq.

Through USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, the United States will support countrywide programs providing health, protection, and relief commodities for displaced populations, as well as humanitarian coordination. By working with UN and international partners, this contribution will provide immediate, life-saving supplies to families on the move as they flee conflict, reproductive health and newborn care services to camp and non-camp populations, services for survivors of gender-based violence, and investments in the coordination of humanitarian assistance to provide better programming and efficiency.

This contribution also includes assistance for early warning and preparedness activities for people at risk of severe flooding from a potential failure of the Mosul Dam. This includes preparedness and awareness activities for populations at risk of being affected by a potential breach, as well as strengthening and development of nationwide alert systems.

The United States urges all nations to contribute robustly to United Nations humanitarian appeals for Iraq. Despite continuing support from the United States, more needs to be done, and the international community's help is urgently needed.

https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/04/255613.htm


Secretary Kerry's Press Availability in Baghdad, Iraq

U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, April 8, 2016

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, good afternoon everybody, and thank you for your patience. I really appreciate it.

I have had a very productive series of conversations, a day of meetings here in Baghdad. And I want to thank Prime Minister Abadi, Foreign Minister Jaafari, Speaker Jibouri, and KRG Prime Minister Barzani, all of them, for the time they gave today, for the serious conversations we had, and for their partnership as well. I also want to thank our terrific United States Ambassador Stu Jones for his leadership here during a very busy and very complicated period of time.

I want to pay tribute to the Iraqi Security Forces and the people of Iraq for their bravery and fierce determination in the fight against Daesh. And I want to thank our extraordinarily capable, brave U.S. servicemen and women as well as others from the coalition, our partners - all of whom are joined together to fight Daesh and improve the capability of the Iraqi Security Forces.

When I was last in Iraq, shortly after Prime Minister Abadi was sworn into office, Daesh was approaching Baghdad and launching offensive operations across Anbar, Nineveh, and Salah ad Din provinces. Many people thought that Daesh was inevitably going to come into Baghdad, and people were clamoring for the United States to do something about it and asking for our airpower or whatever power it was we could bring to bear to try to save Baghdad and save Iraq. I said then when I was here in Baghdad that we would push Daesh back, we would stop the onslaught, and together, I can say we have. Today the situation is completely different.

And while many battles still lie ahead, the strong ties between the local forces on the ground and the global anti-Daesh coalition are turning the tide. Daesh is getting weaker by the day, and the coalition strategy of supporting the Iraqis with training, with equipment and airstrikes is working.

The fact is in Iraq, Daesh fighters have not been on the offensive in months. They are losing ground, including more than 40 percent of the territory that they once controlled in Iraq. And last spring, the Iraqi forces liberated Tikrit, and 95 percent of Tikrit's families have resettled back in Tikrit in the time since then. In November, Daesh crumbled in the face of the advance on Sinjar. And in December, the ISF - the Iraqi Security Forces - seized and now holds Ramadi. And this month, we have seen important gains around Hit, in Anbar province and Makhmur - the starting point for the liberation of Mosul. And just yesterday, the Free Syrian Army reclaimed from Daesh one of the last key crossings that the terrorists had controlled on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Since the coalition was formed in 2014, Daesh has lost tens of thousands of fighters, and coalition airstrikes have taken out more than a hundred senior and mid-level leaders, including their so-called ministers of war and finance.

Our strikes have also had a serious impact on Daesh's cash flow. We've hit more than 1,200 targets - oil targets, reducing by 30 percent the organization's ability to generate revenue from oil. And we have demolished cash storage sites - including six in Mosul alone. Millions of dollars that would have been used to finance terror have instead gone up in flames, and Daesh has been forced to slash its budget and cut by half the salaries of some of its fighters.

So Daesh is unequivocally losing ground, losing leaders, losing fighters, losing cash. And not surprisingly, members of its rank and file are also now losing hope.

We see increasing evidence that terrorists are disobeying orders, fleeing their positions, and even trying to escape by hiding among civilians.

Daesh is on the defensive - that is clear. But its capacity to inflict suffering regrettably still remains. That is also true. And we take very seriously the threat that it still poses.

This is something that the Iraqi people know only too well and too tragically. There are terrorist acts in Iraq on nearly a daily basis - individual acts. Recently, Daesh sent a 15-year-old boy to blow himself up at a youth soccer game near al-Iskandariya. Enlisting children to kill themselves and to kill other children - this is the depravity that we are up against, and it has no place in the modern world - not in Baghdad, in Brussels, in Istanbul, in Paris, in San Bernardino or anywhere else.

As a coalition, we and our partners recognize the need to stay united, to keep sharing information, and to improve every aspect of our capabilities. And we will not be complacent at any point in this campaign.

In the coming weeks and months, the coalition will work with Iraq to turn up the pressure even further. We will continue targeting and taking out Daesh's leaders, and we will train local forces to take and hold more ground.

I want to underscore that we share Prime Minister Abadi's goal of liberating Mosul as quickly as possible. And earlier today I was pleased to hear from the prime minister the importance that he places on empowering local forces to help take back their city, as well as his plans for post-liberalization stabilization. And as we've said before, this will be an Iraqi-led operation with coalition support.

The coalition will also continue to provide much-needed aid for the Iraqi people, including refugees who have been devastated by Daesh. The United States has provided more than 623 million just to Iraqi refugee situation, and this is in life-saving humanitarian assistance for the Iraqi people since the start of the crisis. And today, I am pleased to announce an additional sum of nearly $155 million for Iraqis affected by the ongoing violence, bringing our total humanitarian contribution to nearly 780 million since the start of Fiscal Year 2014.

As more and more territory is liberated by Daesh, the international community has to step up its support for the safe and voluntary return of civilians to their homes. This is a point that I stressed very strongly in my meetings yesterday with representatives of the GCC - the Gulf Cooperation Council - and a message that I know the President will also reinforce in his engagements with international leaders both at the GCC summit at also at the G7 summit.

Now, we know that displaced Iraqis are going to need help rebuilding the communities that they were forced to flee. There's a terrible level of destruction and devastation in many of these communities, much more than people thought might have existed - buildings destroyed, electricity destroyed, infrastructure that doesn't work anymore. And so in addition to the humanitarian aid the United States is providing to Iraq, we are also contributing to the Funding Facility for Immediate Stabilization. And this program, led jointly by the UNDP and the Government of Iraq, has facilitated the return of over 100,000 Iraqis to their homes in Tikrit. And it is embarking on the difficult challenge now of clearing Ramadi of land mines and IEDs so that its population can return home as well.

Our support for the Iraqi people is part of our larger commitment to a future Iraq as defined in its constitution, an Iraq that is unified, pluralistic, federal, and democratic. And we're also working closely with the government as they address critical economic challenges due to the falling price of oil. I just met a few minutes ago with KRG folks who also have suffered from the price fall of oil, and this is placing pressure on Iraq as a whole and is something that we need and will help to address. The United States fully endorses the work that the government has done to date with the IMF and the World Bank, and we are working with Iraq to provide technical support as the country diversifies its economy.

Before I take a few questions, let me reiterate my thanks, and particularly I want to reiterate the support of President Obama, Vice President Biden, myself as Secretary, and the entire Administration in the United States for Prime Minister Abadi, who has demonstrated critical leadership in the face of enormous security, economic, and political challenges.

We urge all of the parties in Iraq to work together, to come together, to advance the political process in ways that for certain advance the interests and the aspirations and hopes of the Iraqi people. We stand ready to assist the Iraqi Government in any way that we can as partners and as friends.

Daesh's days are numbered here in Iraq, in Syria, and wherever it exists. We knew from the start that this fight was not an easy fight, and that victory was not going to be achieved overnight. We said that again and again. This is not going to happen overnight; this is going to take a period of time. Obviously, there remains much to be done. But I made very clear in every one of the meetings that I had today that the United States is determined that together with our friends and allies in Iraq and the coalition, we will succeed. And the evidence on the ground indicates that we are in fact doing that now.

I am convinced that together, we will not only defeat Daesh, but we're going to help the people of this country to be able to recover and to go forward and to live a life in peace and tranquility, which is what they desire.

Thank you all very much. I'm happy to take any questions.

Q&A:

QUESTION from Pam Dockins, Voice of America: Secretary Kerry, thank you for doing this. First of all, today in your discussions with Iraqi officials, were there any talks about putting more U.S. troops on the ground? And a related question: What's the status of the offensive in Mosul? Is there a pause? And in your opinion, are the Iraqis ready for this offensive? And you mentioned the political situation. How concerned are you that if the cabinet reshuffle and reforms are not approved, that it will jeopardize the fight against Daesh?

SECRETARY KERRY: I think we're doing this consecutive. Is that correct? Simultaneous. Oh, okay. That makes it easier. Thank you.

There - first of all, whatever troops we have in Iraq, whatever troops are committed to this effort, are at the request of the Government of Iraq. And at this point in time, I'm not aware that there's some additional request. I think there's been some discussion about some additional operations, specifically from DOD. But there's no - there was no request from Prime Minister Abadi today for some new infusion of troops at this point in time, and nor did we discuss that.

With respect to Mosul, the Mosul operation is in what people call the shaping of the operation, in military parlance. And that means that the groundwork is being laid, the prelude is being set for this operation, and there are some priorities that need to be achieved in that context, and I leave it to the military and the Government of Iraq to lay this out. Our role in this operation is a support role. This is an Iraqi-led effort, Iraqi-defined. We did talk about it today, certainly, but what Prime Minister Abadi said to me was clear, unequivocal, that this is a major priority - his major priority. He has his own timeframe in mind, and we are quite confident that with the good work of our commander out here, General MacFarland, and the coalition that is working with him, that there will be continued focus on Mosul and ultimately Mosul will be liberated.

Now, I'm not going to go into the timeframe. I'm not going to go into the details of what constitutes that shaping. But I will absolutely confirm without any doubt whatsoever, because we support that priority that Mosul is at the top of the list in terms of priority. But there are things happening right now that are helping to shape the particular operation, and I'll let the Government of Iraq describe when they are ready what they intend to do and how they will do it.

With respect to the potential shift in the cabinet, the prime minister made it very clear to me that he has ideas in mind for what he wants to do in the next days, hours. He's holding his meetings, he's reaching out and talking to people, as is appropriate. We don't play a role in that. That is entirely up to the prime minister and the Government of Iraq. And he will make whatever announcements he has to make regarding it at the appropriate time.

What we certainly did indicate to him - because it is in our interest - was that it is important to have political stability. And it is important to have a unified and functioning government as rapidly as possible in order to move forward so that all of these operations are not affected, and so that we give confidence to the coalition and to those who are thinking about supporting the stabilization of those communities already liberated that the government is in place and ready to work appropriately in order to make that stabilization process effective.

So I am confident that given the priority the prime minister expressed about Mosul, given the priority that he expressed about their economic challenges here in Iraq, I have no doubt that the prime minister is extremely focused on making certain that there is a strong government in place that has the ability to move forward and address all of the issues of concern.
(...)
QUESTION from Amjad from Al-Iraqiya: (Via interpreter) I have a couple of questions. My first question: You know that Prime Minister Abadi has a set of reforms that are stumbling and that there are a lot of objections from Iraqi sides regarding these reforms. And I know that you met, Mr. Secretary, with the prime minister of the Kurdish region and also met with Prime Minister Abadi and possibly going to meet with the speaker of the parliament. Are you playing any role in mediation and trying to help the Iraqi sides reach an understanding in that new arrangement for the new government?

And my next question about the campaign against ISIS: We see that there are - there are a lot of advances by the Iraqi forces toward the west of Iraq. We see that Anbar province is - most likely will be liberated and cleared very soon. On the Syrian side of the borders, we see also advances from the Syrian side supported by the Russian air force against ISIS. And of course, here in Iraq, it's supported by the international coalition and the American airpower. Is - there is any coordination or cooperation between these four sides? What I mean by that is Syria, Iraq, the international coalition, and the Russians.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, thank you very much. Appreciate both questions.

As I mentioned earlier - and let me repeat this - we are not a mediator. That is not our role. We are a supporter of Iraq and of Prime Minister Abadi and his government as they address enormous security, economic, and political challenges. And our message is the same to everybody - that the issue of a cabinet change is an internal political matter, and we realize how difficult internal political challenges are, because we have our own at home and we don't ask other countries to come mediate them, nor does Iraq ask us to come and mediate here.

That's not why I'm here. I'm here to make clear - this visit, by the way, was scheduled well before any issue came up about a change in the government. So this has been on the schedule because I have periodically come out here in order to continue to coordinate our efforts to fight Daesh and to build a strong, independent, sovereign Iraq.

And what we - my message to everybody I met with was very straightforward. We urge everybody to work together. We urge everybody to put the interests of Iraq writ large ahead of personal interests or sectarian interests and to find this - in this moment of crisis a way to be able to join together to come out strong and provide us with an ability to advance the interests of the Iraqi people. It's that simple. And the United States, we have said many times, values its partnership with the Government of Iraq. It's a partnership that's built on trust and respect for each other's sovereignty.

And what we have signaled very clearly today - and I've said it a moment ago - is we support Prime Minister Abadi and his government as it addresses these very complex security, economic, and political challenges. And it's up to the prime minister to make the choices as to what he's going to do and how he's going to do it. He knows how we feel about it.

I also stressed to them that with the fiscal crisis that Iraq faces because of the drop in the price of oil, and with the urgency of moving on Mosul and finishing the job of defeating Daesh, this is a time for unity, it is a time for people to come together and support the larger interests of all Iraqis who want peace and stability in their country. So that really sums up why I'm here.

With respect to the coordination issue, given the cooperation between Russia and the United States as co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group, and co-chairs of the cessation of hostilities task force, inevitably of course we are talking to each other and working to make the cessation of hostilities work more effectively, and also to try to be able to implement the goals of the International Syria Support Group, which is a political settlement with respect to Syria according to the outlines set forth in the Geneva communique of 2012. That's our goal.

So we have a task force that is meeting every single day in Geneva. And we have a coordinating office that is meeting every single day in Amman, Jordan. And there we do discuss what happened the day before, what is happening with al-Nusrah or ISIL, where they may be, what - we also discuss, obviously, any accusations of a violation of the cessation, and we try to chase that to find out what happened and to prevent it hopefully from happening again.

So that information is clearly going to be dissected by both sides. And of course, we communicate with the full array of all of our forces that are out here trying to beat Daesh if there's anything we learn through that process that helps us to be able to be more effective. So in that sense, clearly there is an effort now to make the cessation of hostilities work and to be able to implement the Vienna communiques and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, and we're working to that effect.

And we are not, obviously, coordinating in terms of what is happening on the ground with respect to Assad because we have different points of view about Assad. The Russians support the Assad regime and the United States does not. In fact, we believe very, very deeply that there is no way to have peace in Syria while Assad is still calling the shots for the regime. And as I've said many times in these meetings, that's not because we are exercising discretion that just decides we don't like him and he ought to go. It's because you simply can't stop the war while Assad is there. And most people have come to understand that he is a block to peace and he is a magnet for jihadis, for terrorists who come there and fight using him as an excuse for their acts of terror. So we are - as well as attracting moderate opposition who fight him, who do not engage in those acts of terror but who are opposed to Assad.

So it's a very complicated battlefield, a very obviously complex set of choices, but I think we are at this point making progress on all fronts, and we need to see what happens obviously with respect to the Geneva talks that will reconvene shortly, at which the issue of transition will be squarely on the table, which begins to get to the heart of any potential settlement.

https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/04/255619.htm