(*) MIKATI MEETS WITH HIS IRAQI COUNTERPART

Prime Minister Najib Mikati met this morning in Baghdad with Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia' al-Sudani. The meeting was followed by expanded talks which included on the Lebanese side Caretaker Ministers of Industry, Agriculture, Public Works and Transport, Energy and Water, as well as Lebanon's Ambassador to Iraq, the President of the General Corporation for the Promotion of Investments in Lebanon (IDAL) and the Deputy Director General of State Security. Participating on the Iraqi side were the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Oil, Minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works, Ministers of Agriculture and Industry and Minerals, the Chairman of the National Investment Commission, Undersecretary of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, and Chargé d'Affairs of the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut. The expanded talks will be followed by a bilateral meeting between PM Mikati and President al-Sudani, and then a press conference. Mikati and his accompanying delegation had arrived this mo rning in the Iraqi capital on an official visit, where they were received at Baghdad International Airport by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Oil Minister, Hayan Abdul Ghani. Source: National News Agency - Lebanon