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Iran president begins historic Iraq trip
BAGHDAD
Petroleumworld.com, Mar 03, 2008Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a historic visit to Iraq on Sunday -- the first ever by an Iranian president -- hoping to boost ties with Baghdad with which Tehran fought a bitter eight-year war.
Ahmadinejad arrived in Baghdad airport at around 9:05 am (0605 GMT) and is heading a large delegation including Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari met him at the airport which was subjected to a security lockdown with all access roads closed hours before the plane landed.
Ahmadinejad was expected to head to the residence of his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani, where Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh and Defence Minister Abdel Qadir al-Obeidi were also waiting.
Ahead of the two-day trip, Ahmadinejad had said the visit would mark a "major step in deepening brotherly relations" between the two Muslim neighbours.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Saturday, he reiterated Iran's belief that the "insecurity, disagreement and tension" in war-ravaged Iraq were a result of a "plot" by the United States, the arch-enemy of Iran.
"It is the American practice to present others as guilty wherever they are defeated," he said, dismissing US allegations of Iranian meddling in Iraq. "Is it not funny that those with 160,000 forces in Iraq accuse us of interference?"
US President George W. Bush, during a press conference in Texas with visiting Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, accused Ahmadinejad of "exporting terror" and calld on Iran to "quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens."
The US military in Iraq says that Iran is supplying weapons and training for anti-US insurgents. Iran denies the charges.
Ahmadinejad's visit to Shiite-majority Iraq is set to underline Western concerns about Iranian influence in the region that Washington alleges extends to aiding militants in Iraq and also destabilising Lebanon.
The trip is a strong show of support by Tehran for the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Ahmadinejad's visit also aims "to tell the US it is us and not you who have influence in Iraq. Do not think that you can do whatever you like over there," said Mohammad Sadegh al-Hosseini, an Iran-based expert on Iranian-Arab affairs.
"Iran is also going there to brush aside any ambiguities that it is responsible for instability in Iraq," he added.
Iraq under former dictator Saddam Hussein fought a devastating war against then Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini between 1980 and 1988 in which about one million people were killed.
As Saddam clamped down on internal dissent, many prominent Shiites now in positions of power took refuge in neighbouring Iran.
The overthrow of Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime in the US-led invasion of 2003 that was condemned by Tehran has, however, led to a marked improvement in relations with Shiite Iran.
Today trade between them is brisk. Millions of Iranian pilgrims travel to major Shiite shrines in Iraq, and Iran is building a major airport for pilgrims to fly to Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala.
But complicating these relations are the US troops helping prop up Maliki's administration.
US embassy spokesman Philip Reeker downplayed the US role in Ahmadinejad's visit.
"This is a bilateral visit. These two countries need to have a relationship," he said.
Washington broke off diplomatic ties with Tehran in 1980 after Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held the staff hostage.
The US military has 14 Iranians in custody in Iraq and says it has proof that the Islamic republic supplies insurgents with armour-piercing explosives and rockets.
Iran and the United States held three rounds of talks about security in Iraq in 2007. A fourth meeting scheduled for mid-February was postponed, at Iran's request, with no date given for a new meeting.
On Saturday, Ahmadinejad said the talks between Iran and the United States have "tremendously helped to stabilise conditions and to change the Americans' views on Iraq."
"It is not correct that we are going to Iraq (as a move) against anyone," the outspoken president later said in a live interview on Iranian state television.
"My going there will benefit everyone. It will definitely help strengthen the Iraqi nation. The Iranian and Iraqi nations are intertwined."
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar said that during the visit, Baghdad and Tehran were to sign up to 10 agreements in different sectors.
Story by Jay Deshmukh from AFP
AFP 02 0649 GMT 03 08Copyright© 2008 respective author or news agency. All rights reserved.
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