By Xinhua,
Baghdad : The United Arab Emirates will appoint its ambassador to Baghdad within few days, the Iraqi government said on Thursday.
During a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the visiting UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nahayan announced that his country “will appoint its ambassador to Baghdad during the next few days,” Maliki’s office said in a statement.
Maliki, for his part, welcomed the UAE efforts to promote the diplomatic Arab representation in Iraq, said the statement obtained by Xinhua.
Earlier in the day, Nahayan arrived in Baghdad in an unannounced landmark visit aiming at discussing the return of UAE diplomatic representation in the Iraqi capital.
The visit is the first for a Gulf Arab foreign minister since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, which came in response to initiation from his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari.
The UAE maintained only low-level representation in Baghdad after it withdrew its top envoy in Baghdad in 2006 following the kidnapping of one of its senior diplomats who was released two weeks later.
In a joint news conference, Zebari told reporters that more diplomatic missions would visit Iraq, namely from Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.