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Salih: Iraq can be a 'bridge to the economies of the region'

Iraqi president charts new direction for Iraqi foreign policy based on "interrelated interests" at Sulaimani Forum; Iraq-Jordan trade deal should help address Jordan’s unemployment crisis; Rouhani arrives in Iraq to boost trade; US shifted arms from Iraq to Syria in second half of 2018.
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p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {font: 14.0px Times; text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none; color: #347ab7; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #347ab7} span.s3 {font: 15.0px Calibri; font-kerning: none} Iraq is ready to help steer the region away from confrontation and toward integration, Iraqi President Barham Salih told the sixth annual Sulaimani Forum on March 6. Everyone can share “a degree of success” in Iraq’s reconstruction, he said, adding that Iraq can “be a bridge to the economies of the region by linking the infrastructure between Iraq and the Gulf and Turkey between Iran and the Arab region and the Mediterranean.”

Expanding on these themes in an interview with Mina Al-Oraibi of The National, Salih added, “It is incumbent on us as this new team leading Iraq to move and push forward the Iraqi agenda that we consider to be vital for a new regional order based on economic integration and collaboration among the nations of the region, but also internationally in the fight against extremism.”

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