Ambassador meets the President of the International Academy of People’s Diplomacy

On July 3, 2019, Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the Russian Federation, H.E. Haidar Mansour Hadi, met President of the International Academy of People’s Diplomacy in Russia Mrs. Flora Maksumova, to discuss the ways to strengthen the cooperation between the Embassy and the Academy.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Ambassador stressed on the importance of popular diplomacy which is considered a companion to the official diplomacy in its results and importance in achieving the rapprochement and cooperation between the people, because it is beyond the formal restrictions and protocols that characterize the latter. The external decision maker of any country must recognize the role of public diplomacy and the need to activate it externally through cooperation with members of communities around the world, with the availability of basic elements that can be exploited at popular level and official, whether by civil society organizations or what some represent such as sports and cultural events, and activating the projects and programs of the popular elites, noting that the Iraqi Embassy gives a great importance to this subject by the establishment of several cultural and social events to raise the level of bilateral relations between Iraq and Russia. For her part, Mrs. Maksumova said that dozens of Russian diplomats working in the Russian Foreign Ministry are members of the International Academy of People’s Diplomacy, as well as Ambassadors of different countries and diplomats residing in the Russian Federation, and invited the Ambassador to join the Academy in order to benefit from the expertise of Iraqi diplomacy in the field of the people`s diplomacy and to establish of joint activities aimed to strengthening the Iraqi-Russian relations.