Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Abdul Karim Hashim, meets the Russian President’s envoy and the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the State Duma

On February 4, 2020, the Undersecretary of the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul Karim Hashim Mustafa, met both the envoy of the Russian President to the Middle East and North Africa and the Deputy Foreign minister, Mr. Mikhail Bagdanov, and the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Russian State Duma, Mr. Leonid Slutsky in order to discuss the bilateral relations and the ways to develop them between the two countries.

At the beginning of the meeting, the two parties expressed mutual interest in the anti-terrorism file in the Region, with an emphasis on the need to continue to coordinate joint efforts to end the presence of terrorist groups in the areas of eastern Euphrates. A consultations were also held on the issue of increasing trade cooperation between the two countries to levels that rise with the size of the historical ties that link Iraq and the Russian Federation.

Regarding holding the meetings of the Iraqi-Russian joint committee for bilateral cooperation, Mr. Abdul Karim Hashim Mustafa explained the importance of holding these meetings on an ongoing basis due to their great impact on increasing the economic cooperation between the two countries, indicating the existence of the Iraqi desire to open new horizons in the field of trade cooperation with Moscow. For his part, Mr. Mikhail Baghdanov stressed on that the Russian Government is keen to maintain the bilateral relations with the Iraqi Government through the establishment of intensive meetings between the two parties, stressing on that Moscow is following with a great interest all the developments in Iraq including the formation of the new Iraqi Government, pointing out to that the Russian side looks forward to working with it in all fields, especially in the field of oil and energy, expressing the desire of Russian companies to increase their investments in these two sectors.