Iraq wants to develop its cooperation with Japan in order to restore relations to their pre-Gulf war level, Iraqi Parliament Speaker Saadun Hammadi said Wednesday, August 15. "Iraq is ready to restore its relations (with Japan) in all fields in order to reach the level of cooperation" the two countries enjoyed before the 1991 Gulf war, said Hammadi during a meeting with Japanese MP Hosei Norota.
Quoted by the official INA agency, Hammadi said his country "did not have a problem with the UN, but there is a conflict with the United States, which imposes its diktats on independent peoples all over the world".
Norota, who arrived in Iraq Tuesday at the head of a large Japanese parliamentary delegation, stressed "the need to strengthen Iraqi-Japanese cooperation in the economic and parliamentary fields".
Tokyo often called on Baghdad to respect its obligations towards the UN and had voiced support for US-British military action against Iraq in 1998. In August 1998, Baghdad had refused to sell oil to Japanese and British firms, apparently in reaction to these two countries' support for the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. ― (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
