MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Iraq will participate in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress due in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on January 29-30, Iraq’s Ambassador in Moscow Haidar Mansour Hadi said in an interview with TASS.
Baghdad shares Moscow’s stance on Syria and hails Russian proposals aimed at resolving the Syria crisis.
"We are supporting the Sochi conference. We received an invitation to join," Hadi said. "It was submitted by the Russian ambassador in Iraq to our foreign minister. So we are waiting on the decision. So we can participate."
"That will be a positive influence [on] the conference to try [to] bring closer all these different parties, whether they are opposition or government, to try and create a healthy environment for them to come closer together. So hopefully we will see peace," he added.
"We were against any violence in Syria that killing civilians, killing children, killing women. We also supported all Russian initiatives in this matter," the ambassador said.
"We had our problems in Iraq when we had to fight al-Qaeda, had to fight ISIS … and all these terrorist organizations in Iraq," he said. "Unfortunately, some of them came from the outside of Iraq with some sort of support. So that complicated the situation in Iraq. We managed as a country to beat them, to declare victory."
The diplomat reminded that Syria and Iraq share the border.
"We need a secure situation in Syria now because security in Syria will help keep security in Iraq," Hadi said. "Any instability in Syria, escalation of all this violence, fighting will always have some sort of a threat for Iraq because having these terrorist organizations whether al-Nusra, ISIS or any other organization operating actively in Syria will always pose a threat to us."
Baghdad joins efforts with Damascus, the Iraqi diplomat said.
"We will play a positive part in all these negotiations, ether in Russia or in any other place," he said.
"Because we do care about Syrian people. We do care about the integration of the Syrian territory. We want Syria to be Syria - one country, a secure country, a developed country and we will always work towards that," he concluded.