Baghdad Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Omar Al-Barzanji, held a meeting with Takagi Kei, Deputy Foreign Minister of Japan, accompanied by the Japanese Ambassador in Baghdad Matsumoto Futoshi, at the ministry’s headquarters.

The two sides affirmed their keenness to develop and consolidate political and economic relations between the two friendly countries.

The Undersecretary indicated that Iraq is looking forward to building economic partnerships with a number of countries in the world, led by Japan, in order to rebuild and rehabilitate the infrastructure, and touched on the historical relations between Iraq and Japan and the importance of strengthening them to serve the interests of the two friendly countries, calling on his Japanese counterpart to reconsider recommendations to avoid travel to Iraq, in line with the security and political developments in the country, thus enabling businessmen, investors, academics, experts and tourists to travel to Iraq.

For his part, Takagi praised the development of bilateral relations between the two friendly countries and promised to study the issue of facilitating travel to Iraq, especially after his tour in the Baghdad regions and his visit to the National Museum and the opening of the Japanese pavilion at the Baghdad International Fair and watching the improvement in security there.

He added that he will visit Basra Governorate to inaugurate the large Basra water projects and Al-Hartha thermal power station, which Japanese companies have contributed to rehabilitating, and the two sides agreed to exchange official visits between the two friendly countries and work to overcome the obstacles facing some Japanese companies operating in Iraq.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency