Foreign ministers' meeting of the expanded neighboring countries of Iraq kicked off here on Saturday morning in Ciragan Palace.
The meeting gathers foreign ministers or senior diplomats from Iraq's six neighbors -- Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- plus Bahrain, Egypt, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference and the United Nations.
Also to attend the gathering are senior diplomats from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France -- and members of the G-8, including Germany, Canada, Japan and Italy.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari arrived here on Friday.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also arrived here late Friday after meeting Turkish leaders in Turkish capital Ankara.
The conference is supposed to discuss Iraq's security, but Iraqi and Iranian leaders have cautioned that the meeting could behijacked by the border crisis between Turkey and Iraq posed by Turkey's separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) based in northern Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is tasked with closing gap between the United States and Turkey over a possible cross-border incursion by Turkey into northern Iraq to crush the PKK, arrived here late Friday after intense talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara.
Source: Xinhua
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