U.S. Opens New Embassy Comound In Baghdad

Baghdad, Iraq (AHN) - American diplomats and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Monday inaugurated America's largest foreign diplomatic headquarters as the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq opened on Monday.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte led the inauguration ceremony of the heavily fortified complex six times larger than the United Nations complex in New York and cost $700 million to build. The embassy will house some 4,000 staff, including U.S. diplomats and military officials, who have been headquartered at the presidential palace since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 until Wednesday.

"This building is not only a compound for the embassy but a symbol of the deep friendship between the two peoples of Iraq and America," Talabani said, according to AP.

Crocker said the embassy symbolizes the continued and long-term engagement of the U.S. in developing a new Iraq. Negroponte described the embassy as the continuation of the friendship, cooperation and support to Iraq by the U.S.

The size of the embassy reflects the broadening of U.S.-Iraq ties amid an improved security situation in the country, said U.S. spokeswoman Susan Ziadeh.