The United States on Friday demanded Iraq's parliament reconsider its plan to take a two-month summer recess to avoid sending "the wrong signal" to Iraqis and the world.

"U.S. officials, including Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker, have said this may send the wrong signal not only to the international community but to the Iraqi people," national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said of the recess plan.

"This isn't like our Congress, who can go back and forth between their district (and Washington). It's more difficult -- I don't need to say why," Johndroe added, apparently referring to increasing bloody violence in Iraq.

American Ambassador to Iraq Crocker reportedly has raised Washington's objections to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

"The prime minister's attitude when we talked about it was it shouldn't be two months, it shouldn't be one month, it shouldn't be a week -- maybe a weekend," Crocker was quoted as saying on the sidelines of a regional security conference on Iraq at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Source: Xinhua