Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi attends a session at the parliament headquarters, in Baghdad, September 8, 2018. Iraqi Prime Minister Office
Baghdad: The two leading groups in Iraq's parliament on Saturday called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to resign, after lawmakers held an emergency meeting on unrest shaking the country's south.
"We demand the government apologise to the people and resign immediately," said Hassan al-Aqouli, spokesman for the list of populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr which won the most seats in a May election.
Ahmed al-Assadi, spokesman for the second-largest Conquest Alliance list, denounced "the government's failure to resolve the crisis in Basra", a southern city where 12 protesters have been killed this week.