BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rejected an attempt by Iran to persuade him to step down, senior Iraqi politicians said Wednesday, underlining his determination to defy even his top ally to push for a third term in office and further exacerbating the country’s political crisis.
Maliki has for weeks been resisting growing pressure for him to step aside, including from former Shi’ite political allies and from Iraq’s top Shi’ite spiritual authority.
His critics see the Shi’ite prime minister as too divisive to form a government that can win support from the Sunni minority against the militant-led Sunni insurgency that has seized control of a large swath of the country.
But the recent meeting between Maliki and Iran’s pointman in Iraq, senior general Ghasem Soleimani, was the first sign that Iran also believed he should go.
Iran was crucial for Maliki in winning a second term four years ago.
In Washington, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Iraq, Brett McGurk, refused to say Maliki should step aside.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he said Iraq made political progress with the appointment last week of a new Parliament speaker and was moving toward choosing a new president and forming a new government.