Iraq's president meets Qatari FM amid calls for de-escalation
President Barham Salih met on Wednesday at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad with the Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
The President and the Foreign Minister examined the current situation regionally and globally as well as discussing ways which would de-escalate the situation and preserve the security and stability in the region. The need to exercise restraint and to rely on political will adopting language of wisdom and dialogue to alleviate the escalated tension, they stressed.
Salih noted that Iraq could help to create an appropriate atmosphere for a positive understanding between regional and international powers. Iraq seeks to be a stabilizing factor, a center for peace as well as a supporter for the joint efforts aimed at dealing with the current crisis so that the peoples of the region can live in peace, stability and prosperity, he highlighted.
The President stated that Iraq doesn't want to be a staging post for any hostile action against any of its neighbors or a new battleground draining the energies and peoples' abilities.
Qatar's Foreign Minister, in turn, underlined the sensitive of the current situation, pointed out the importance of coordination and joint action with regional and international parties with a view to reaching peaceful solutions which would maintain the region's security and stability.
Ways to strengthen and develop bilateral relations between Iraq and Qatar so as to serve the common interests of the two brotherly peoples were also discussed.