By Muhammad Sohail
On Friday, October 18, 2024, Minister Lipavský held talks in the Černín Palace with Fuád Husayn, Deputy Prime Minister for International Relations and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq.
After Minister Lipavský’s trip to Baghdad in May 2023, when the Czech Republic and Iraq already celebrated the 80th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Iraqi head of diplomacy visited Prague.
” Our two countries have long-standing relations since the days of Czechoslovakia, and Czech energy companies have long been involved in building capacities in refineries in Basra, ” said Minister Lipavský at the beginning of the meeting.
Czech exports to Iraq are still growing and last year already reached almost 5 billion crowns, especially in the traditional energy, defense and automotive sectors.
New opportunities are opening up for Czech companies within the framework of the important infrastructure project Development Road – a transport corridor that the Iraqi government wants to connect the port in the Gulf with the border of Turkey, which is part of the customs union with the EU. ” Potentially, the oil that the Czech Republic began taking from Iraq from the end of 2023 can travel through this corridor. After a successful testing phase, Iraqi oil can become part of the mix to replace Russian oil supplies from about the middle of next year, ” added the head of Czech diplomacy. The ministers also talked about the humanitarian and stabilization aid that the Czech Republic has provided to Iraq since 2018, in the amount of 152 million crowns.
The debate also focused on the security situation in Iraq. The Czech Republic and Iraq have long-standing bilateral relations in the field of defense. Czech military and civilian experts work in the missions of NATO, the Global Coalition against ISIL, the EU and the UN to support the stabilization and reform of the country’s security sector. ” Iraqi pilots fly on Czech L-159 machines and train annually on simulators in Čáslav and Pardubice. Czech Tatra cars also have a good name in Iraq, ” said Minister Lipavský.
The Russian war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon were also topics. Ministers agreed that further destabilization in the Middle East must be prevented.
