Saudi crown prince received Iraqi minister

For the first time, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz on Sunday received Iraqi Minister of Justice Shabib al-Maliki, within the delegation of Arab ministers of justice and the interior.

This meeting, though including other Arab ministers, is the first that brings Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah together with an Iraqi official.

Al-Maliki arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday to take part in the first meeting of the joint ministerial committee of the Arab ministers of the interior and justice.

Baghdad severed its relations with Riyadh on February 6, 1991 during the Gulf War. Despite the severed relations, several Iraqi ministers visited Saudi Arabia to take part in Arab or Islamic meetings, but none of them was of main ministers or members of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's family or close to him.

The meeting of the Arab ministers aims at setting up an Arab technical committee in charge of implementing the Arab anti-terrorism pact.