Iraq vows to reinstate relations with Turkey

ANKARA

Foreign Minister Davutoğlu (R) shakes hand with al-Nujaifi in Ankara.

Turkey and Iraq have reached an agreement to reinstate bilateral ties, Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi stated in a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Cemil Çiçek. 

“In a meeting we had today with Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan, we reached an agreement to put the relationship between the two countries back on track, back to its normal flow,” al-Nujaifi said yesterday.

“I submitted Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s desire for relations to go back to normal, and for problems to be solved, new horizons to be opened. Prime Minister [Erdoğan] accepted this issue. In a short while, there will be mutual visits and soon after he will invite the Iraqi foreign minister to Turkey,” he added, while affirming that bilateral ties between the two countries had “always been positive” and had witnessed only a brief regression. Al-Nujaifi also commented on the ongoing crisis in Syria, saying that both Iraq and Turkey had responsibilities. “The two countries have a common responsibility to sustain stability and peace in the region. What is happening in Syria is making our hearts bleed. As a neighboring country, it has been affecting us too. By all means, we must make an effort to create peace and stability in Syria,” he said. 

The Iraqi speaker also criticized the West’s response to events in Syria. “While 100,000 people were dying, they did not get mad. They only voiced their reaction when 1,000 people died with chemical weapons. Their aim is not to stop death in Syria, it is to take the chemical weapons from Syria,” he said.