US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted in remarks aired Thursday that Washington is seeking to help all Iraqis, not merely Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, adding that the US was not planning to work hand-in-hand with Tehran.

US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted in remarks aired Thursday that Washington is seeking to help all Iraqis, not merely Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, adding that the United States was not planning to work hand-in-hand with Tehran.

"This is not about Maliki," Kerry told NBC television in an interview taped Wednesday. "Let me stress, what the United States is doing is about Iraq, it is not about Maliki."

"Nothing that the president decides to do is going to be focused specifically on Prime Minister Maliki. It is focused on the people of Iraq," Kerry said.

Kerry also walked back comments he made suggesting that the US was considering military cooperation with Iran in Iraq.

"What I said was we are interested in communicating with Iran to make clear that the Iranians know what we are thinking and we know what they are thinking, and there's a sharing of information so people aren't making mistakes."

Asked if the US was planning to work hand-in-hand with Iran, Kerry replied: "No. We're not sitting around contemplating if we're  going to do that. That's not on the table."