Saudi Arabia to restore ambassador to Iraq
Saudi Arabia supports Iraq’s security, stability and its efforts to counter terrorism
Dubai: Saudi Arabia announced it will be sending back its ambassador to Iraq soon, Okaz daily newspaper reported on Saturday
The move has been announced up on the directives of Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and following a meeting between Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Prince Faisal with Ali Allawi, Iraq deputy premier and acting minister of finance and oil, who was in the Kingdom on an official visit.
“This comes in order to reflect the Kingdom’s desire to strengthen relations between the two countries,” Prince Faisal said.
Prince Faisal expressed the Kingdom’s support to Iraq in order to achieve its security and stability and counter terrorism, noting that the Kingdom respects the sovereignty of Iraq away from foreign interference.
The foreign minister pointed out to the importance of the Saudi-Iraqi Coordination Council as a mechanism for developing relations between the two countries to broader cooperation in the political, economic, security, commercial and investment fields.
Saudi Arabia and Iraq also agreed to coordinate with all oil producing countries to restore balance to the oil market, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
SPA said the accord came during a meeting between Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ali Allawi, who arrived in the kingdom earlier today.
The two sides, during the meeting, expressed satisfaction for improvement of “basic factors in the petroleum market with start of implementing the OPEC-plus accord and agreed on the necessity to pursue action with all producers to speed up restoration of markets’ balance, affirming their countries’ firm commitment to implementing the agreement,” SPA said.
OPEC and its partners in the OPEC-plus group inked a deal in April 2019 to cut the crude output by more than nine barrels a day. The official Saudi news agency also quoted Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan as affirming the kingdom keenness on unity of the Iraqi people and indicated at the Saudi leadership desire to reinstate the Saudi ambassador to Iraq as soon as possible.
SPA added that Allawi discussed with Saudi Minister of Commerce Dr. Majed Al-Qasabi and Minister of Finance Mohammad Al Jadaan, during the meeting, means of boosting financial and business cooperation between the two countries. The two sides touched on a host of other issues related to land border checkpoints, customs and partnership between the private and public sectors.