Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, sworn in last July, has made his first official visit abroad to Iraq, seeking to bolster ties amid growing regional tensions.
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Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian kicked off his first trip abroad as president with a visit to Iraq, hoping to tighten ties between Baghdad and Tehran as regional tensions escalate.
Iran’s relationship with Iraq is crucial for economic, political and religious reasons — something especially true since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, who launched a war against Iran in the 1980s.
Baghdad has been trying to balance its relationship with both Iran and the US.
Tehran backs powerful Shiite militias in Iraq, while the US maintains a force of 2,500 troops that remain in battle with remnants of the Islamic State group in the country.
The American troops are both a literal and rhetoric target for Iran, particularly as Israel’s nearly year-old war on Hamas in the Gaza strip grinds on.
Ahead of Pezeshkian’s arrival, an explosion struck a site near Baghdad International Airport used by the US military.
There were no reported causalities, and the circumstances of the explosion were unclear.
During his trip, Pezeshkian is also due to visit Shiite shrines in the cities of Karbala and Najaf, a railroad project in southern Iraq and the capital of the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region, Erbil.
Pezeshkian was sworn in as Iran’s new president in July.