Baghdad

It was June when Kurds came closest to gaining their dream of independence. Northern Iraqi Kurds captured the oil-rich Kirkuk following the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) assault on Mosul on June 10. Following this, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, declared they would hold an independence referendum soon.

Nuri al-Maliki finally bowed to pressure with Iraq and beyond on Aug. 14 and stepped down as prime minister, paving the way for a new coalition that world and regional powers hope can quash a Sunni Islamist insurgency that threatens Baghdad.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu worked through the night to avert a coup attempt in Iraq when special forces loyal to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and armored vehicles were deployed across strategic locations in Baghdad late Aug. 10.

Diplomacy is the business of subtly transmitting your messages. It is always what lies between the lines that matters, not what appears on the surface and at first glance. This is also how the White House’s official readout of President Barack Obama’s phone conversation with Turkey’s newly elected president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday should be read.

France will deliver weapons to Kurdish forces fighting Islamic extremists in Iraq, President Francois Hollande announced on Aug. 13.
     
"In order to respond to the urgent need expressed by the Kurdistan regional authorities, the president has decided, in agreement with Baghdad, to deliver arms in the coming hours," Hollande's office said in a statement.

Iraq moved closer to turning the page on Nuri al-Maliki's reign when an alternative prime minister was named Monday to steer the country out of a raging war and save it from breakup.
      
"The country is in your hands," President Fuad Masum told Haidar al-Abadi after accepting his nomination by parliament's Shiite bloc, in a move immediately welcomed by the United States.

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki not to cause trouble as he threw his weight behind newly-elected President Fuad Masum to help fight Islamic militants.
      

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s insistence on not leaving office has produced the current political crisis in the country, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, adding that there was a recent coup attempt when forces reportedly surrounded President Fuad Masum’s compound.

Western countries are concentrating their diplomatic effort in Iraq's capital Baghdad, in a push to stop the Sunni insurgents called Islamic State.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has urged that a "broad unity government" be forged in the country to combat the militants while on a visit to Baghdad, France 24 quoted him as saying.

The three candidates in the Aug. 10 presidential elections in Turkey rallied their supporters for the last time in their campaigns, giving assertive messages and warnings about ballot box safety.