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Iraqi To Make Highest Level Official Visit To Egypt Since Gulf War
CAIRO (News Agencies) - Iraq's Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan will sign a deal here Tuesday for a free trade zone with Egypt, on the highest Iraqi official visit to Cairo since the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi diplomats said Monday.
Egyptian government newspapers reported in December that Iraq would sign a deal here soon to set up a free trade zone with Egypt as part of wider moves toward removing tariffs in the Arab world.
Egypt, Iraq and Libya intend to set up a trilateral free trade zone, according to Arab League sources.
The Arab world, which has plans to set up a region-wide free trade zone by 2007, has been warming to Iraq increasingly in recent months with moves to boost trade and resume flights despite a decade of U.N. sanctions.
Under the free trade zone accord, Iraq will "abolish all trade barriers" for Egyptian goods and form "a single market," Iraqi Commerce Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh explained, quoted in the Baghdad newspaper Al-Ittihad.
He said Iraq hoped to clinch similar deals with other Arab countries, singling out Syria.
Egypt, the top supplier of sanctions-hit Baghdad under the U.N. oil-for-food program, is expected to export $1.2 billion of goods to Iraq in 2001, up from $400 million in 1999, Egyptian ministers have said.
Iraq broke off diplomatic ties with Egypt after Cairo joined the U.S.-led force opposing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the Gulf War, which brought on the sanctions. On November 7th, Iraq and Egypt announced the effective resumption of relations.
Egypt has become one of Iraq's major economic partners since 1996, when the United Nations started authorizing Iraq to export oil for food, medicine and other necessities.
Cairo has regularly called for an end to the economic sanctions on Iraq.
Iraq's second in command, Ezzat Ibrahim, traveled to Cairo last October but it was to represent his country at the emergency Arab summit designed to support the Palestinians. He met Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on the summit sidelines.
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