Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian is set to travel to Iraq on Wednesday, marking his first foreign visit since his election in July, the official Iranian news agency Irna reported on Sunday.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian is set to travel to Iraq on Wednesday, marking his first foreign visit since his election in July, the official Iranian news agency Irna reported on Sunday.
The visit will feature bilateral meetings with Iraqi officials and the signing of several agreements, including security memorandums, according to the agency.
Relations between the two Shiite-majority neighbors have strengthened significantly over the past two decades. Tehran, a key trading partner for Iraq, wields considerable political influence in Baghdad, where its allies dominate the parliament and have formed the current government.
In March 2023, the two countries signed a security agreement, just months after Tehran launched strikes against Kurdish opposition groups in northern Iraq. As part of this agreement, Iran and Iraq agreed to disarm Iranian Kurdish rebel groups and move them away from the shared border.
Iran has accused these groups of smuggling weapons into Iran from Iraq and of fueling protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman who died in police custody in September 2022.
In January, Iranian forces carried out an attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, claiming to have targeted "a headquarters" of "agents of the Zionist regime (Mossad)," referring to Israel, Iran's arch-enemy.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan cautioned on Friday against any renewed attack on Iran, saying such a move would exacerbate tensions and further expand the conflict there, adding that diplomacy and dialogue were the only way to end the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that peace negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States had agreed to meet at a technical level in the first half of November in Abu Dhabi, adding that he hoped a meeting of the countries' leaders would follow.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank is on the way, after two Israeli soldiers were killed in a shooting attack in Hebron just days before Tuesday’s general election.
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