Secretary of State John F. Kerry, on a Mideast mission to help stave off the unraveling of Iraq, said Sunday it was up to the Iraqi people to decide who should lead them – but pointedly noted wishes across the Iraqi political spectrum to "not continue the mistakes of the past."
The secretary, inaugurating his regional swing with a stop in Cairo, also sought to dampen Arab states’ funding of opposition groups in Syria, pointing to the Iraq crisis as proof of the dangers of the spillover effect of the Syrian civil war.
Egyptian activists clash with riot police at a protest in Cairo.
In the Egyptian capital, the secretary met President Abdel Fattah Sisi for the first time since the former military chief took office two weeks ago. Kerry voiced support for greater personal freedoms for Egyptians, but also employed conciliatory rhetoric meant to repair a relationship soured by mistrust in nearly a year since Sisi led a military coup against his elected but widely reviled predecessor, Islamist Mohamed Morsi.
"Let me just say that the United States is not engaged in picking or choosing or advocating for one individual or series of individuals to assume the leadership of Iraq," he said. "That is up to the Iraqi people."
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