Iraq's Oil Minister Amer Mohammad al-Rashid said Tuesday that Baghdad would shortly give Beirut oil worth 10 million dollars as a gift promised after Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon last March, Baghdad, (AFP)
Rashid was talking to Lebanon's Energy Minister Suleiman Shafic Trabulsi during a meeting about "setting up a new form of oil cooperation between the two countries", the Iraqi News Agency reported. The gift had been decided by Iraq "to support the Lebanese people and families of fights of the National Lebanese resistance," after the Israeli raids."We have reviewed the mechanism to implement the decision of Iraq to make a gift to Lebanon to help after the destruction of electrical installations in the Zionist aggression," Trabulsi said. He said the talks had included "the possibility of reaching an oil agreement similar to that between Iraq and Jordan" under which Amman receives cheap oil. Trabulsi began a five-day visit to Iraq on Monday and was also due to meet officials from the finance, trade, irrigation and health ministries. Lebanon cut relations with Iraq in 1994 after an Iraqi dissident was murdered in Beirut, but in the last two years ties have warmed as have Baghdad's links with Syria, the real power in Lebanon. An aircraft from Lebanon is this week due to join the flood of flights into Iraq to try to end a UN air embargo in force since Baghdad invaded Kuwait in 1990 – (AFP)
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