Security tight ahead of Arab Summit in Iraq
- 12 years ago
The flags are flying and preparations continue in Baghdad as Iraq prepares to host its first Arab League summit in decades.
The three-day summit is the first of its kind to be held in Iraq in more than 20 years.
Security is tight.
Last week more than 50 people were killed in Iraq in a wave of bombings across the country.
Against this backdrop Arab economic and finance ministers gathered Tuesday, two days ahead of the official opening of the meeting.
A successful meeting would allow Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to show the country is pulling back from years of violence, months after the last U.S. troops left.
The upheaval in neighboring Syria will dominate the meeting, with Arab League leaders split over how to respond to the violence.
Visiting dignitaries will get a glimpse of an Iraq whose long conflict has ebbed, but also see an OPEC member whose population still struggles with the daily threat of bombings, power shortages and a crumbling infrastructure nine years after the U.S. invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Deborah Lutterbeck, Reuters.
The three-day summit is the first of its kind to be held in Iraq in more than 20 years.
Security is tight.
Last week more than 50 people were killed in Iraq in a wave of bombings across the country.
Against this backdrop Arab economic and finance ministers gathered Tuesday, two days ahead of the official opening of the meeting.
A successful meeting would allow Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to show the country is pulling back from years of violence, months after the last U.S. troops left.
The upheaval in neighboring Syria will dominate the meeting, with Arab League leaders split over how to respond to the violence.
Visiting dignitaries will get a glimpse of an Iraq whose long conflict has ebbed, but also see an OPEC member whose population still struggles with the daily threat of bombings, power shortages and a crumbling infrastructure nine years after the U.S. invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Deborah Lutterbeck, Reuters.