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BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister has ordered the security forces not intervene in the current political crisis over who will be the next prime minister.
In a statement issued on his official website, Nouri al-Maliki urged army, police and security forces to stay out of the political crisis and focus on defending the country.
A day earlier, Haider al-Abadi, the deputy speaker of parliament from al-Maliki's Shiite Dawa party, was selected by President Fouad Massoum to be the new prime minister and was given 30 days to present a new government.
Al-Maliki rejected the move and described it as a constitutional violation. Just before the announcement he ordered elite army units into the streets of Baghdad.
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