Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani (R) greets U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the presidential palace in Arbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan autonomous region, June 24, 2014. Kerry was in Iraqi Kurdistan on Tuesday to urge its leaders not to withdraw from the political process in Baghdad after their forces took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk. Peshmerga fighters, the security forces of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish north, seized control of Kirkuk on June 12 after the Iraqi military fled in the face of an onslaught from Sunni militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). REUTERS/Brendan Smialowski/Pool (IRAQ – Tags: POLITICS)