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Putin: Russia Moves to Lift Sanctions Against Iraq
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia stands for canceling the 10-year U.N. sanctions against Iraq at an early date alongside with Baghdad's observing relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Russia will make active efforts to favor the removing of the sanctions, which are hurting Iraq and its people and are also incurring great losses on Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told a press conference after Putin met with visiting Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan in the Kremlin.
During the 90-minute meeting, Putin and Ramadan, who is here on a four-day official visit since Tuesday, mainly discussed the ways of solving the Iraqi problem through political and diplomatic means and of developing the economic cooperation between the two countries, Ivanov said.
The two leaders discussed bilateral relations, Russia hopes to restore the close and top-level cooperation that once existed between the two countries.
Ramadan said Moscow and Baghdad have substantially improved relations recently, according to Ivanov.
The two sides agreed to strengthen their cooperation in the energy sector and to resume the Soviet-era economic cooperation projects, first of all the construction of a series of industrial infrastructures.
Putin and Ramadan also agreed that the two states will hold talks by experts to determine the exact amount of Iraq debts to Russia and payment methods.
At Wednesday's meeting, Ramadan conveyed to Putin a verbal message of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which "stressed the interest of the Iraqi leaders in developing relations of strategic cooperation with Russia."
Ivanov said that the question on inviting the Russian president to visit Iraq had not been raised at the meeting.
Ramadan is the first highest-level Iraqi official to visit his country's most important ally since the 1991 Gulf War. His trip is aimed to seek Russian support and cooperation against recent U.S. proposals to restructure the sanctions regime.
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