Iraq offers ‘experience’ to Libya as Jibril visits (AFP)

[Stillw8n]

Iraq offers ‘experience’ to Libya as Jibril visits (AFP)

6 October 2011BAGHDAD — Iraq offered its experience of rebuilding the country and gearing up for democracy during a visit to Baghdad Thursday by Libya’s interim premier Mahmud Jibril, officials said.

Jibril’s visit was his first since a mid-February revolt in Libya that eventually led to strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s overthrow, and he met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

“Prime Minister Maliki offered the experience of Iraq in rebuilding the state, writing a constitution and holding elections,” Maliki’s media advisor Ali Mussawi told AFP.

“The two sides found similarities between the two regimes of Saddam and Kadhafi,” he added, referring to now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted by a 2003 US-led invasion.

Mussawi added that Jibril invited Maliki to visit Libya, with the Iraqi premier responding that he would do so as soon as possible.

Eight years after the invasion, Iraq remains a struggling democracy that is still one of the most violent countries in the world, despite a dramatic decline in the level of attacks since a brutal insurgency and sectarian war left tens of thousands dead between 2006 and 2008.

Deputy Foreign Minister Labid Abawi said earlier that Jibril had been received by Zebari before meeting with Maliki.

“It was just a short visit, a preliminary visit, to express his gratitude for Iraqi support,” Abawi told AFP.

“We discussed the future relationship between Libya and Iraq, and we discussed the possibility of an exchange of high-level delegations between our two countries.”

Last month, Zebari said the uprising in Libya and those in other Arab countries had been inspired by Iraq’s example.

“We’ve been approached by the Libyans, by the Tunisians, by the Egyptians to see how we did it,” Zebari said on September 20 while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.


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