Reuters, Paris, 20 June 2014 – French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday that Iraq needed a government of national unity, with or without Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to counter a Sunni rebel insurgency.

Pressed in a media interview to say whether Maliki should form the broader-ranging government which U.N. Security Council veto-holder France advocated, Fabius replied: “With or without Maliki, but what Iraq needs is a government of national unity.”

U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he was sending up to 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq but he too urged Maliki to do more to heal the country’s sectarian rift.
“We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq,” Obama told reporters. “Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis.”