Jordan king visits Iraq for first time in a decade

Jordan’s King Abdullah met Iraqi President Barham Saleh in Baghdad on Monday (January 14th), in the monarch's first trip to Iraq in more than a decade, AFP reported.

Abdullah's last visit to Iraq was in 2008. Saleh travelled to Jordan in November.

The two countries share a 179-kilometre border, and Jordan is a major importer of Iraqi crude oil.

In 2013, they agreed on a 1,700-kilometre pipeline linking Iraq's oil-rich Basra province to Jordan's Aqaba port, but the sweep of the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) across nearly a third of Iraq put a screeching halt to the plan.

Last year, Jordan approved a framework to revive it, but did not give a timeframe for the line's construction.

The two states also have discussed plans for Iraq to import around 300 megawatts of electricity from Jordan to cope with widespread power shortages.

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