Ties between former foes Iran and Iraq have made little headway despite a top-level meeting in September, a senior Iraqi official said in an interview published on Monday.
"Almost all relevant bilateral issues are still on the table awaiting a resolution," Nizar Hamdoon, undersecretary at Iraq's foreign ministry, told the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES).
"There were signs that Iran was getting closer to a genuine relationship with Iraq," he said, referring to the Caracas meeting between Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan on September 29.
But "it is difficult to judge Iran's determination to do that. We look forward to a serious approach by them," Hamdoon said.
The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq, Kamal Kharazi and Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf respectively, held talks on a normalization of ties on November 10 on the sidelines of an Islamic summit in Doha.
Kharazi himself visited Baghdad in mid-October, a year after the two countries which fought a 1980-1988 war set up several joint commissions to iron out their longstanding differences.
Major stumbling blocks are their support for each other's opposition groups and the release of prisoners from the conflict, which ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire but without a peace treaty -- NICOSIA (AFP)
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