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The absence of a functioning government in Iraq one year after elections were held is hard to justify, the top UN official in the country said on Tuesday, urging political leaders to put aside their differences for the common good. 

Iraq's top court ruled Wednesday that it does not have the legal right to dissolve parliament, a much anticipated decision that raises the stakes in the country's unprecedented 11-month political crisis.+

In a phone call with Iraq's caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden urged Iraqis to resolve the country's months-long political crisis through a "national dialogue." Iraq has been without a government since the October 2021 elections amid tension between rival Shiite factions.

The UN chief on Monday issued a call for “calm and restraint” in the Iraqi capital Baghdad following a day of reportedly violent protests in and around the national parliament building, in the wake of the announcement from political leader and cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that he was leaving politics.

Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi warned Saturday that the political crisis in the country is threatening security achievements made in past years.

Supporters of religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr launched a new sit-in in front of the Supreme Judicial Council, calling for the body to dissolve parliament.

Ten months after populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr won the largest number of seats in the legislature, politicians from the country’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs continue to fight bitterly over the shape of a new government. Now Sadr has withdrawn from the process as his followers camp out in the grand legislature building.

For the second time in a week, on Saturday protesters stormed the parliament in Baghdad, breaching the high-security Green Zone and injuring more than 120 people, news media reported.

Hundreds of Iraqi demonstrators, most of them followers of the Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, have stormed the parliament building in Baghdad to protest against the nomination for prime minister by Iran-backed parties.

Iraq has filed a complaint to the U.N. Security Council, requesting an urgent session to discuss a deadly artillery attack this week that Baghdad blames on Turkey, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.