Iraq, Italy Seek to Enhance Inter-Parliamentary RelationsIraq and Italy agreed to enhance parliamentary relations during a meeting on Monday between acting Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) Speaker Hamid Rashid Al-Rawee and a visiting Italian parliamentary delegation.Al-Rawee reviewed Iraq's relations with Italy and expressed hope of expanding them in all fields, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. Roco Puticlon, head of the Italian delegation, confirmed the necessity to promote parliamentary relations with Iraq, and expressed solidarity with the Iraqi people in confronting the decade-old U.N. sanctions, INA said. Iraqi Parliamentary Speaker Saadoun Hamadi is now in Geneva to attend the special session of the United Nations General Assembly on social development. He is due back at the end of this month. Bilateral relations between the two countries have been improving. Hamadi has sent a letter to Luciano Violante, president of Italian Chamber of Deputies, inviting him to visit Iraq. Italian parliament passed a resolution last Wednesday, calling for the government to take a clear-cut stand for lifting the sanctions on Iraq and reopening the Italian embassy in Baghdad. On April 3, a European plane carrying four people, among them three from Italy, arrived in Baghdad to protest the sanctions on Iraq. Iraq has been under stringent U.N. sanctions ever since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. |
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