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Ehud Barak shakes hands with Iraqi president Talabani

by korzac | July 1, 2008 at 12:57 pm

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The hand shaking between the Iraqi president (and Kurdish) Jalal Talabani, and Israel defence minister Ehud Barak is interesting historically because of the Israeli connections with the Kurds in the past, see here and here.

From the Aswat al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq).

BAGHDAD, July 1 (VOI) – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Tuesday that his handshake with Israeli Labor Party leader Ehud Barak was in his capacity as leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party and vice president of Socialist International.

The president's office would like to indicate that President Talabani, who responded to the request of the Palestinian president, dealt with the matter in his capacity as PUK Secretary General and SI vice president, not in his capacity as the Iraqi president," the statement noted.
"What happened did not entail any obligations on the part of Iraq as a state and does not reflect a change in Iraq's policies supportive of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) based on Arab consensus and international legitimacy resolutions.

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From YNET , the Israeli press.

Making history in Athens: Those attending the international conference in the Greek capital on Tuesday afternoon witnessed a truly historic event – a handshake between the president of Iraq and Israel's minister of defense.

Minister Ehud Barak, who is participating in the gathering of the Socialist International congress in his capacity as chairman of the Labor party, warmly shook the hand of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The two were then joined by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who also extended his hand to them.