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Iraq and Afghanistan to resume ties soon: diplomats

Friday, June 05, 2009 BAGHDAD: Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to resume diplomatic relations "very soon", 12 years after they were severed during the days of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, a senior Afghan diplomat said."We sent a message from our chief diplomat to his Iraqi counterpart about the resumption of diplomatic relations between our two countries and the reopening of our embassies in Kabul and Baghdad," Fazler Rahman Fazil, a senior Afghan consular official, told late on Thursday."We have been received very well here, and we will discuss it when we return (to Kabul), and take a joint decision very soon," said Abdul Raqeeb Salim, a senior official in the Afghan foreign ministry's Arab countries division.The Afghan embassy in Baghdad, in the western Amariyah district, is currently in poor condition and is in need of a great deal of renovation.

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