Armenia to Establish Diplomatic Relations With IraqArmenian Councilor Yori Baba Kanian and Charge D'Affairs Murad Muktyarian arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Thursday to establish the Armenian embassy, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.Such a move came amid Armenia's efforts to strengthen political and economic relations with Iraq. Armenia will "do its best" to call on the United Nations to lift the sanctions imposed on Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the Armenian charge d'affairs said. Armenia is keen on opening new fields of cooperation between the two countries, he said. Armenia tries to develop relations with Iraq to gain a share of Iraq's lucrative market to improve its grim domestic economic situation, which has been troubling the country ever since its independence in 1990. Iraq's reconstruction, a market of over 200 billion U.S. dollars, has been attracting officials and business delegations from countries worldwide to Iraq to make business deals within the framework of the U.N. oil-for-food program. The program, began in November 1996, allows Iraq to export limited amount of oil every six months to finance imports of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to offset the crippling impact of the decade-old sanctions. |
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