Russia ready to supply weapons to Iraq to help fight IS

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Friday 22 May 2015 - 14:07 Makkah mean time-4-8-1436 Putin & Haidar Al-Abadi (AFP Photo) Moscow (IINA) – Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said his country is ready to supply weapons to Iraq to support the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants’ advance in the region, Russia Today (RT) reported. “We will make all efforts to meet [Iraq’s] possible requests, to ensure it has the defense capability and the ability to drive out of its territories the Islamic State and other terrorists," Lavrov told reporters, speaking ahead of talks in Moscow between Putin and Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Thursday. "We have very close and tight military-technical cooperation [with Iraq]," he said. “Unlike some other countries, we are ready to supply weapons to Iraq without preconditions, based on the fact that Iraq, Syria and Egypt are on the forefront of the struggle against terrorism.” Iraq has been Russia's longtime partner and over the past two years bilateral trade turnover has grown 10-fold, Putin said at the meeting with Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Thursday. "Iraq has been our longtime and reliable partner in the region. Despite all the hardships in the world economy and difficulties in the region, our relations have been developing successfully," Putin said. Putin said that Russia has been implementing major projects in Iraq and Russian investments there are estimated at billions of dollars. He added that Moscow will continue civilian, military and technical cooperation with Iraq. AB/IINA