Iraqi president to visit Iran

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
November 21, 2005

Teheran - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will visit Iran on Monday, the news agency Fars reported.

Talabani will arrive in Teheran on Monday afternoon for a three-day visit and meet with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, Fars said.

Top of the agenda will be border security, Iran's role in the reconstruction process of Iraq, Iranian pilgrimage to holy Shiite shrines in southern Iraq and discussion of difference over Iranian support for insurgents which Teheran has constantly denied.

Ahmadinejad last week met visiting Iraqi National Security head Mowafak al-Rabii and reiterated Iran's will to help Iraq in all fields needed to reconstruct and modernise the war-shattered country.

Border security is one of the most sensitive issues discussed by the two leaders, with Teheran asking Iraq to prevent any infiltration by Iraq-based Iranian militant group MKO. In return, Baghdad demanded that Teheran prevent al-Qaeda-related groups such as al-Ansar Hezbollah from entering Iraqi soil via Iran.

Iran also plans to construct an oil pipeline between the southern Iraqi city of Basra and the bordering Iranian Persian Gulf port of Abadan in about ten months. Iraqi crude oil would then be transferred to Abadan for refining and returned to Basra in form of light oil and petrol.

After the fall of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the two neighbouring Moslem states decided to forget the past which also included the 1980-1988 war with hundreds of thousands of war dead on both sides and vast damages to border areas, and to start a new era.