French President Emmanuel Macron called for Iraq to be allowed to choose a path not dictated by foreign powers, in an address Tuesday to a summit aimed at helping to resolve Middle East crises.

"There is a way that is not that of a form of hegemony, imperialism, a model that would be dictated from outside," Macron told the summit at Sweimeh on the shores of the Dead Sea.

Caught for years in a delicate balancing act between its two main allies the United States and Iran, Iraq only recently arrived at a fragile compromise government after a year of political stalemate.

It has endured nearly two decades of turmoil since the US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The jihadist Islamic State group seized roughly one third of the country's territory and declared a "caliphate" in 2014, before its defeat more than three years later.