Arab countries to open embassies in Baghdad: Iraqi foreign minister

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced on Saturday that Arab countries agreed to open embassies in Baghdad.

Arab foreign ministers agreed on a draft resolution on opening embassies in Baghdad which will be submitted to the Arab summit, Zebari said.

"We have demanded immediate implementation of the resolution," Zebari told a press conference on the margin of the Arab Ministerial Council meeting to prepare for the Arab League summit due to be held in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on March 28-29.

He said that the draft resolution represented a real Arab initiative to support and help the Iraqi people at the present stage.

"We used to doubt the Arab role in the Iraqi affairs..., but now we are feeling that there are (Arab) brothers helping the Iraqi people," he added.

Zebari denied the allegation of an imminent eruption of civil war in Iraq. "The united political and religious will of the Iraqi people prevents the country from slipping into this direction," he said.

He also urged other Arab countries to remit Iraq's debts owing to them.

Zebari said that it was up to the Iraqi government to decide on the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq after the mandate of foreign troops in Iraq ends at the end of 2006 under the UN Security Council resolution.

"The departure of these troops depends upon the decision of us, the Iraqi people," Zebari stressed.

Source: Xinhua