Agreements with France to be signed later in Baghdad, Maliki says

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Monday that the two countries agreed to cooperate in transport, energy, water, security, and defense fields and the agreements will be signed later in Baghdad. The premier described his meetings with Sarkozy as friendly and positive. “We tackled the strong friendship relationship between the two countries and we have a desire to set up ties based on the historic relations of the two countries,” al-Maliki told reporters after the meeting. “The French companies are welcome in Iraq to invest in energy field and a French delegation will visit Iraq soon,” he added. “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Monday as he tries to drum up European investment for a country seeking recovery after six years of war,” the AFP said. “April was the bloodiest month in Iraq since September 2008: 355 Iraqis and 18 American soldiers were killed in various violent attacks, casting a pall over al-Maliki’s attempts to convince Europeans it is now safe to invest,” the French news agency said. “What happened in recent times does not call into doubt the stabilisation process. There’s no question of returning to the situation we had two years ago,” Maliki told an audience of French diplomats and journalists. He blamed recent bomb attacks on “defeated factions who are carrying out limited operations” and said France should join the countries that, “having banned their companies from Iraq, are now encouraging them to come.” “Iraq is no longer a threat to international peace. We would like the international community to support us,” he said. Last month, during a visit to Paris, Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdulmahdi said French oil giant Total had been invited to bid to develop two major oil fields in southern Iraq. In February, Electricity Minister Karim Wahid said Paris had been asked to help Iraq build a nuclear power plant, three decades after Israeli jets destroyed an Iraqi reactor France had built for Saddam. Iraq has also ordered French-built helicopters for its armed forces, and Baghdad has made it clear that it wants as much French investment as possible to boost its reconstruction campaign. Before coming to France, Maliki and his entourage visited London, where they made a similar appeal for investment. According to Iraqi officials, Total, France’s largest and most profitable firm, had forged a partnership with US giant Chevron, and has been asked to bid for a contract to exploit the Nahr Bin Umar oil field. The officials said the amount of investment needed by the Total-Chevron partnership has not yet been decided, but that a figure in the region of 15 billion dollars had been discussed. SH (I)/SR 1