Iraq seeks to boost cooperation with EU
 29 June 2007 (IRNA)
Officials from the European Union and Iraq began in Brussels Monday the second round of negotiations for a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
Iraqi foreign undersecretary Mohammad Hamoud who is leading his country’s delegation to the 2-day meeting said the TCA will strengthen Iraq’s relations with the EU.
“This is the second round of talks. We discussed the main issues of trade and cooperation. Views from both sides are identical. We want to reach an agreement with the EU quickly,” Hamoud told reporters.
The TCA negotiations were launched between the EU and Iraq in Brussels last November to progressively strengthen the 27-member bloc’s relations with Iraq and integrate the country in the world economy.
Hamoud said he found the Europeans ready to help Iraq in several fields and Iraq expected the EU to help in the reconstruction, science and technology. “We hope that friendly relations will develop with the EU to the best expected level,” declared the Iraqi official.
In two months the third round of TCA negotiations will be held nd we hope that during this year we will reach to a total agreement, he added.
On his part, the director of the Mediterranean and Middle East affairs in the European Commission, Hughes Mingarelli, said “on our side we will do everything to help.”
Iraq in this difficult circumstances In 2003, the EU committed more than 14 billion euro in terms of debt relief, loans and grants to assist in bring about economic recovery of Iraq, he noted.
Mingarelli said through the TCA agreement EU-Iraq relations will be based on a contractual basis. “Today we had a fruitful exchange of views on the content of the agreement and I am sure we will manage to strengthen our political dialogue with Iraq,” he said.
The EU wants to boost regional cooperation between Iraq and its neighbours. “This is extremely important if we want to bring back stability,” stressed the EU official.
In reply to IRNA’s question on Iraq’s relations with its neighbours, Hamoud replied “with our neighbours it is always the same.
Some of them are helping Iraq, some of them not.” ” We are doing our best to have good relations with all the neighbouring countries. The policy of the Iraqi government is to have peaceful relations with all the countries and good neghbourhood with the neighoburing countries.” The TCA covers a wide range of issues including trade in goods, services, energy, measures to encourage investment, customs, intellectual and industrial property rights, and public procurement rules.
All EU agreements with third countries now feature human rights, terrorism and WMD as important elements. IraqUpdates