German FM arrives in Arbil

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Arbil on Wednesday accompanied by his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari. The minister was received at the Arbil airport by Kurdish Prime Minister Negervan Barzani and Head of the Presidential Divan Fouad Hussein. He will hold meetings with senior Kurdish officials before opening the German consulate in the city. “Steinmeier led a governmental delegation to open the consulate in Arbil after holding a series of successful talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad,” a source from the German embassy in Baghdad told IraqiNews.com news agency. Like France, Germany was an opponent of the US-led invasion of 2003. Steinmeier was chief of staff to then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder when the war broke out. It was the first such visit by a German foreign minister since 1987, three years before UN sanctions were slapped on Iraq. SH (P) 1