Iraqi Vice President to Attend Assad FuneralIraqi Vice President Taha Mohyiddin Marouf will go to Syria to attend the funeral of late Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad who died on Saturday of a heart attack, Iraqi News Agency reported Sunday.Marouf will head an Iraqi delegation to the funeral which is slated for Tuesday, said the report. But it gave no details about the number and names of the delegation members. Marouf will be the highest ranking Iraqi official to arrive in Syria in 20 years, during which the bilateral ties stalled because of Syria's support for Tehran in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iraq war. But the political ice began to thaw in 1997 when the borders between the two countries were reopened for bilateral trade. |
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