AP, Baghdad, 13 Jan 2012 – Iraq’s deputy premier is calling for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step down and warning that the country’s festering political crisis risks sparking a wider sectarian regional conflict. In an interview Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq stood by an earlier charge that Iraq is becoming a new dictatorship under al-Maliki and said Iraqis could eventually rise up violently if he remains in power.
Al-Mutlaq’s Sunni-backed Iraqiya party has been boycotting parliament and Cabinet meetings since last month to protest what it sees as efforts by al-Maliki, a Shiite, to consolidate power, particularly over the country’s security forces.
The protest is fueling fears of a new sectarian rift that could destabilize Iraq now that U.S. troops have left.