WASHINGTON
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi will join an upcoming G7 meeting in Germany and take part in a bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama, White House officials confirmed Thursday.
Abadi will be joined by recently elected Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Tunisian President Caid Essebsi for a working session on terrorism, Obama’s deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters during a conference call.
“This is an opportunity for the leaders of some of the key coalition countries to sit down with Prime Minister Abadi to affirm the importance of continuing our efforts to degrade ISIL,” he said, noting that Abadi’s meeting with Obama will be an opportunity for the Iraqi premier to speak about “the situation on the ground”.
The G7 group of economic powers, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and the UK, included Russia in the exclusive gathering in 1998, but suspended Moscow last year after it annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. The G7 will convene June 7-8 at the German luxury hotel of Schloss Elmau.
Obama will likely rally European support for maintaining support for sanctions that the West imposed on Russia following the annexation, and for what the U.S. and its allies say are Russia’s ongoing destabilizing actions in eastern Ukraine, during the summit.
“We believe it’s important that Europe is sending a strong signal of the need to continue the strong sanctions that are in place on Russia, and they’ll have decisions to make through the month about how they will continue those sanctions,” Rhodes said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if an ongoing investigation into FIFA was discussed during the summit.
