On this day in 1978... Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Hafez al-Assad gathered in Baghdad to sign the "Joint National Action Treaty", in an attempt to overcome the differences between Iraq and Syria and pave the way for integrated unity.

On this day in 1978... Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Hafez al-Assad gathered in Baghdad to sign the "Joint National Action Treaty", in an attempt to overcome the differences between Iraq and Syria and pave the way for integrated unity.

But the unification project announced later in 1979 collapsed with the change of leadership in Baghdad, and relations between the two countries returned to estrangement.

The unity project between Baghdad and Damascus has become a new controversy.