Iraqi foreign minister makes first trip to Iran

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein is on his first official visit to Tehran. Pool via AP, file 

Iraq’s foreign minister arrived in Tehran on Saturday for bilateral talks with senior Iranian officials, according to the state-run news agency.

IRNA reported that Fuad Hussein planned to meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani during his first visit to the Iranian capital.

Mr Zarif visited Baghdad in mid-July and met with Mr Hussein and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi.

It was Mr Zarif’s first visit to Iraq since a US airstrike in January killed a top Iranian general, Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, outside Baghdad’s international airport. The strike catapulted Iraq to the brink of a US-Iran proxy war that could have destabilised the Middle East.

After Mr Zarif’s trip, the Iraqi premier visited Iran in July.

The report did not elaborate on the main reasons behind the top Iraqi diplomat’s two-day trip to Tehran, but it comes days after Washington extended a sanctions waiver for Baghdad to continue buying gas from Iran. However, US officials said they expected to see progress by Baghdad in the next 60 days to reduce dependence and Iraq’s electricity minister has since said that work is being done in this regard.

Iran sees neighbouring Iraq as a possible route to bypass US sanctions that President Donald Trump re-imposed in 2018 after pulling the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Last year, Iran’s exports to Iraq amounted to nearly $9 billion (Dh33bn), the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday. It said the two nations will discuss increasing the amount to $20 billion.

Before the current global pandemic, millions of Iranian pilgrims visiting Iraq’s Shiite holy sites were a major source of revenue.

Iran has seen the worst outbreak in the region, with more than 443,000 thousand confirmed cases and at least 25,300 deaths.

The Associated Press quoted local media reporting that Iran cancelled all its flights to Iraqi cities until the religious holiday of Arbaeen, due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.