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Syrian foreign minister to begin landmark
visit to Iraq
19.11.2006
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Baghdad, November
19, -- Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem will
begin a landmark visit to Iraq Sunday, a key
parliamentarian and Iraqi Foreign Ministry official
said.
Muallem would be the highest ranking Syrian official
to visit since the U.S.-ouster of Saddam Hussein in
2003 and a major step toward restoring diplomatic
relations, Kurdish legislator Mohamoud Othman said.
A senior Foreign Ministry official confirmed the
visit on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to release the information.
The Syrian foreign minister will be in town today
for a two-day visit. He will hold talks with
President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki and other senior officials of the Iraqi
government during his two-day visit." Mahmud Othman
said Sunday.
Muallem is scheduled to arrive in the afternoon and
will meet Hoshyar Zebari, his Iraqi counterpart,
Othman said. |
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem
Photo:AFP |
Earlier this month Muallem said Damascus was ready
to engage in a "dialogue" with the United States in
a bid to achieve stability in Iraq and the region.
"We support the political process in Iraq and the
Iraqi government and we are against a single of drop
of Iraqi blood being shed," he said after a meeting
of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
Britain has urged the U.S. administration to seek
Syrian help in Iraq, despite frosty relations
between Washington and Damascus.
Walid Muallem is the current foreign minister of
Syria and a long-time diplomat for that country.
He took office as foreign minister on February 11,
2006 during a cabinet reshuffle in which his
predecessor Farouk al-Sharaa became vice-president.
Muallem is a former ambassador to the United States
and was serving as deputy foreign minister of Syria
when he became foreign minister.
He has been accused, along with Sharaa and many
other Syrian diplomats and politicians, of lying to
international investigators about possible Syrian
involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese
prime minister Rafik Hariri. He currently resides in
Damascus.
AP | AFP | Agencies
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