Maliki, Allawi, describe their meetings as “positive”

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraq‘s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki and former Prime Minister and Leader of al-Iraqiya Bloc, Iyad Allawi, have announced an agreement to continue their meetings. The two reiterated that their meeting at the headquarters of member of National Alliance and former PM, Ibrahim al-Jaafari in Baghdad on Tuesday had been “postive and fruitful,” having concentrated on the main principles of building a new Iraqi state, capable of protect the country’s interests and opening up towards the world. “Our meeting today had concentrated on joining together the experiments of the three phases that passed on Iraq, each of them that faced challenges and had its special circumstances, reitering necessity to put those challenges and experiments together, in advanced positions to face the building of the state establishments,” Maliki said in a news conference. “We have moved towards some mechanisms and not details, through which we found that the establishments which must be built in the forthcoming phase shall move to broader areas, aimed at rising to the level of responsibility that we must challenge in building the state. We must hold further meetings related to the political process. I don’t believe that reaching common viewpoints is difficult, so long as there are real intentions,” Maliki said. Iyad Allawi, on his part, told the news conference that the meetings had been “positive and fruitful, as we carried out strategic discussions, related to the future of the country and the future of all Iraqis, in order to help Iraq to return to its sound situation and play its strategic role in the Region.” “We have reached, in our dialogue, mutual viewpoints, based on fact that each of us has his own experience that would complete the experience of the other. We have thus become able to achieve the goals of all Iraqis,” Allawi said. “We agreed to continue our meetings till the formation of the new government and all establishments that would emerge from it,” Allawi noted. SKH/SR 1