Iraqi Vice President To Visit India In Highest-Level Trip In 25 Years
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadhan will visit India next week in the highest-level visit from Baghdad in 25 years, the foreign ministry said here Friday.
Ramadhan, who will lead a top-level 17-member delegation including Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid and Deputy Foreign Minister Nur Al Weiss, will stay in India between November 27 and December 1, a communiqué said.
The team is scheduled to meet President K.R. Narayanan, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Vice President Krishan Kant and a host of dignitaries.
They will visit India's information technology capital, Bangalore, in the southern state of Karnataka. The two sides are expected to sign a long-term cooperation agreement.
New Delhi has traditionally had warm ties with Baghdad.
India has concluded more than 150 contracts with Iraq - valued at more than $280 million - as part of the U.N.-sponsored "oil-for-food" program.
