Bahraini FM: Iraq’s debts should be written off

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Bahraini foreign minister Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed al-Khalifa on Saturday called to cancel Iraq’s debts during his visit to the capital Baghdad. “We came to develop relations with Iraq, which we always seek to support,” the Bahraini official said during a Baghdad-based joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zibari. “The Kingdom of Bahrain invited the Iraqi president and the prime minister to visit Manama,” Khalifa noted. Earlier today, Khalifa arrived on an unannounced visit to the Iraqi capital and was received at the airport by his Iraqi counterpart and an under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, Labeed Abbawi. When asked about the reasons behind the delay in the reopening of the Bahraini embassy in Iraq, Khalifa said that his country has never hesitated to take this step, unless for security reasons. On Thursday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani received the credentials of the ambassadors of Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, and Spain to Iraq. SS (S) 1