Expats dream of better climate for efficient Iraqis’ home-return

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi expatriates expressed wish better conditions are achieved in Iraq to encourage efficient professionals to return to home. Hammoudi al-Harthi, an actor, told IraqiNews.com that the Iraqis’ home-return largely depend on stable security conditions, entrenching Iraqi sovereignty and receiving security responsibilities in all provinces. The 1st international conference on Iraqi efficient professionals and experts abroad has concluded proceedings in Baghdad on December 23 with participation of more than 200 figures. The two-day event, held under the aegis of the Iraqi parliament, aimed to prepare a database on efficient Iraqi professionals abroad and means to make their return home easier. “Many Iraqis outside the country wished to attend the conference but their busy schedules prevented their participation in the gathering,” Harthi said. Farhan Jarallah, who spent 22 years in a European country, told IraqiNews.com that he came back home to Iraq with “hopes to settle there after that long time outside,” expressing his wish for “actual seriousness in such conferences”. “The return of efficient Iraqis scientists and academicians to their homeland hinges above all on having their jobs back, skipping the red-tape in such cases and having favorable security conditions,” Jarallah said. One of the recommendations in that conference was the founding of an agency affiliated to the Iraqi cabinet to set up an information bank on the names, specializations and countries of residence of Iraqi scientists and experts and the adoption of a plan to overhaul the legal system regarding these efficiencies. For his part, Abdelkhaleq Zankana, the chairman of the committee on displaced persons and emigrants, told IraqiNews.com that the convening of that conference was a step on the right track and ushers in a new beginning to deal with part of the displaced persons’ problems. Zankana, a member of the Kurdistan Alliance (KA), the second largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 53 out of 275 seats, called for exerting more efforts to encourage the displaced Iraqis in and outside the country to return to their original dwelling areas. “The displaced persons’ return to their homes in Iraq is not easy and would require painstaking efforts, particularly with the plunging oil prices that affected the country’s economic situation,” he said. AmR (S) 1