The Iraqi government is in intensive talks with international parties in order to hold a hearing at the UN Security Council to discuss the recent security developments in the country, an Iraqi source close to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki told Ahram Online on Thursday.

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, while fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – a Sunni Al-Qaeda splinter group – have already seized most parts of the key northern city of Mosul.

Ihsan Al-Shammari, a political adviser to Al-Maliki and president of the Iraqi Political Thinking Centre, told Ahram Online from Baghdad that the intensive talks are aimed to form an international coalition to combat terrorism and to intervene in Iraq in a bid to eradicate ISIL.

Al-Shammari added that the US administration is reviewing its stance towards Al-Maliki's government and is aware now that the process of building democracy in Iraq is at stake. 

He stressed that Washington will provide military and logistical support to the Iraqi government, while also confirming expectations that Tehran will "swiftly provide military aid to stop the advance of these extremist elements".

Iran's statements on intervention to halt such operations in Iraq carry many ways of interpretation, he indicated.

"The Iraqi government believes that what is going on now is being done in the context of a local collusion to settle political calculations between the government of Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad. The crisis in Iraq poses as a regional conflict of regional axes amidst international and Russian-American abandonment of backing Iraq during the previous period," he concluded.

Fighters from ISIL launched a major offensive that began on Monday, overrunning the northern province of Nineveh and significant parts of Kirkuk and Salaheddin provinces, and also moving into northern Diyala.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran would combat terrorism in neighbouring Iraq.

The US said that the danger of ISIL is not only a threat to Iraq but also to the whole region. Washington is considering several options for offering military assistance to Baghdad, including drone strikes, a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity.