More foreign leaders congratulate Xi on election as Chinese president

BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhua) -- More foreign leaders have sent congratulations Friday to Xi Jinping on his election as Chinese president.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, messages received Friday included those from Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Moroccan King Mohamed VI, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Norwegian King Harald V, Greek President Karolos Papoulias, Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic, Bhutan King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Nowegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Germany's left-wing Die Linke party leaders Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger and its parliamentary group leader Gregor Gysi, Lebanese Progressive Socialists Party Chairman Walid Jumblatt, and Yemen's General People's Congress leader and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Xi, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was elected state president and chairman of China's Central Military Commission on March 14 at the plenary meeting of the first session of the 12th National People's Congress.