Bulgaria Hails Political Progress towards Govt in Iraq

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Mladenov has expressed support for the deal on forming a new government in Iraq. Photo by Foreign Ministry

Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov has welcomed the achievement of political agreement in the Iraqi Parliament that has set the stage for forming a new government of Iraq.

Some 9 months after Iraq's last elections a newly-minted Iraqi government power-sharing deal.

Under the proposed deal, the three major governmental positions were to have been filled by three members of the country's largest ethnic groups - the Shiites, the Kurds and the Sunni Arabs.

Politicians forged a compromise that left Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president, in power for another term. The deal created a powerful new office that was expected to be headed by Allawi, al-Maliki's rival. That office would be called the National Council for Strategic Policies and it would be a check on al-Maliki's power.

"I welcome the political agreement in the Iraqi Parliament, which starts the process of forming a new Iraqi government. Bulgaria hopes that Iraq will very soon have operational institutions that will continue the recovery of the country," Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov stated Friday.

He says that the new Iraqi government will work actively for national appeasement, and will tackle terrorism no matter what groups of the Iraqi society it targets.

Mladenov declared Bulgaria's support for the new government in Iraq in a telephone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiar Zebari, the press service of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said.

Zebari has in turn thanked Bulgaria for supporting the democratically elected government of Iraq, and expressed hopes that the new Cabinet of the country will be in place within a month.

The two countries' top diplomats have stated their expectations for boosting bilateral trade and economic ties once the new government of Iraq takes over.

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry reminds that Bulgaria has had diplomatic relations with Iraq since 1958, and that in 2003-2008 it participated in the recovery of Iraq with a military mission.

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