Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian to make first foreign visit to Iraq

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.