BAGHDAD, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Iraq on Thursday hailed the UN Security Council's decision to ease its sanctions imposed on the Middle East country after its invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990.
The UN Security Council's latest resolution on Iraq would help the country to play its role as a full international community member and other countries should cooperate and build friendly relations with it, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a televised speech.
"Iraq extends the hand of friendship to all countries ... and a friendship based on common interests, respect and non-interference is the way to spread security and stability," Maliki said.
He said Iraq and Kuwait's ability to overcome the difficulties and rebuild their mutual trust should be hailed as an example to build constructive relations between countries.
Earlier on Thursday, the UN Security Council eased some of its sanctions against Iraq, welcoming progress on resolving pending issues from its 1990 invasion of its smaller neighbor Kuwait, including finding Kuwaiti or third-country nationals.
The new UN move was contained in a new resolution unanimously adopted by the 15-nation UN body, which has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security under the UN Charter.
The new resolution called on the Iraqi government to continue searching for Kuwaiti nationals and property missing since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion, but terminated provisions in earlier texts that allowed the military enforcement of the measures under Charter VII of the UN Charter.
Recognizing that the situation that now exists in Iraq is significantly different from that which existed at the time of the invasion, the Security Council decided that the issues of missing people and property would now be handled under Chapter VI of the Charter, which calls for a peaceful resolution of disputes.
Immediately following the action in the Council chamber, Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqi Foreign Minister who attended the meeting in New York, hailed the decision as an "historic landmark" in relations between his country and Kuwait.
He told reporters that the resolution was making "Chapter VII a thing of the past and ... concentrating on the present and the future." Both countries were cooperating in good faith and managed to close all the files on Chapter VII issues.
He added that such cooperation could serve not only as "a new beginning for relations between our two brotherly countries," but also as an example to other nations seeking to settle disputes peacefully.
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