July 30, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1424

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BAGHDAD, July 29: A Syrian freight train is due in Baghdad on Wednesday, the Iraqi rail company said on Tuesday, marking the resumption of rail links between the two countries broken since the Iraq war was launched on March 20.

A ceremony will be held at the Rabia border post in the presence of officials from the two countries’ rail companies, Iraqi company spokesman Khamis al-Rabi told AFP.

Rabi added that a Turkish delegation was also in Baghdad for talks on Tuesday on a resumption of rail links.

Iraq had proposed to Syria and Turkey holding a tripartite meeting in a bid to harmonise tariffs and the frequency of trains between the three countries, he said.

Iraq resumed rail links with Syria in August 2000 and Turkey in July 2001 for the first time since the UN slapped an embargo on Baghdad in 1990 for invading Kuwait.

That embargo was lifted in May after the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime.—AFP