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BAGHDAD: Mahmoud 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 a.m. 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 Defense 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 neighbors.
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 archenemy 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
called 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 destabilizing 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.
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.
-- AFP
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