Lebanon’s ministers of state, finance and trade joined a humanitarian flight to Baghdad on Thursday, and once in the Iraqi capital called for trade ties between the two countries to be restored to their pre-Gulf War levels.
Iraq was Lebanon’s main trading partner prior to 1991, consuming up to one-third of its exports. he Lebanese officials visit to the Iraqi capital represented the first official government visit to Iraq since diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed in 1994.
Fouad Siniora said that the government plans on actively encouraging the country’s business community to increase its presence in Iraq, with the intention that it already will control a substantial portion of the market when UN sanctions are eventually lifted. Initially, though, it is expected that trade between Lebanon and Iraq will only take place under the UN oil-for-food program. — lbawaba-MEBG)
