“We shall not align ourselves with certain countries or be party in an alliance against others,” Thamer Ghadhban, who is also Iraq’s oil minister, said in London according to Reuters.

Recent events in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf of Oman, “posed a serious threat to peace in the region and the free and uninterrupted passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz,” he told the CWC Iraq Petroleum Conference.

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