More than 200 Russian firms have pledged to attend the Baghdad International Trade Fair, due to open on November 1st, according to reports.
The participating Russian firms are specialized in heavy industries, car manufacturing, agricultural machinery, oil and electricity.
The Russian envoy Nikolai Kartuzov was quoted by AFP as saying "Russia is eager to expand its cooperation with Iraq within the scope of the strategic relations between the two countries."
In September, Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh said Russian companies had won contracts worth $40 billion to help develop Iraq's oil and gas, petrochemical and industrial sectors, Tehran Times reported.
Earlier, the Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan visited Moscow where both sides underlined their desire to rebuild their past high level of trade, even as the UN and Baghdad remain stalemated over lifting sanctions on Baghdad.
In Prague, on 19 April 2001, the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov offered some of the clearest statements to Moscow's impatience with sanctions on Iraq when he summed up a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the visiting Iraqi vice president, reports said at the time.
Ivanov said Russia and Iraq both want to restore the high level of cooperation that once existed between the two countries. He reiterated Russia's desire to see the sanctions lifted, saying that they harm not just Iraq and the Iraqi people but also, in his words, "inflict great losses on Russia." – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
