Arab Parliament praises Kuwait initiative for Iraq
Visiting President of Arab Parliament Mishaal Bin Fahad Al-Salmi yesterday hailed Kuwait’s initiative to hold a conference for re-constructing Iraq. Iraqi Foreign Ministry quoted Al-Salmi as affirming, during a meeting with Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, his support for the Kuwaiti initiative and urged Arab states to seek greater detente with the country.
“We stand on Iraq’s side and we are optimistic about its future due to solidarity among its political forces and standing of the Arab brothers on its side,” he stated. For his part, Al-Jaafari affirmed that his country needed support and contributions to reconstruction of the infrastructure. Such help is also required to facilitate comeback of the relocated to their original towns, deal with other challenges such as oil prices’ fall and high cost of the war on terrorism, he added.
Iraq, which depends heavily on oil exports, is engaged in wide-scale military action against terror groups, namely the so-called Islamic State. The IS was driven out of the northern city Mosul recently following full-scale heavy fighting with government troops and paramilitary forces. On July 31, Kuwait officially announced that it started contacts with world countries, the World Bank and Iraq to prepare for hosting a donors’ conference to rebuild areas liberated from the IS in Iraq, forecast in first quarter of 2018.