Iraqi Prime Minister Makes First Official Visit to Iran

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki received a red-carpet welcome at Iran's presidential palace on Tuesday at the start of his first official visit to the neighbouring country since taking office in May.
Al-Maliki's talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were expected to cover regional issues and joint projects in energy, trade and economy. Maliki will spend two days in Iran.

This week Barham Saleh, al-Maliki's deputy Prime Minister, visited Tehran as head of a delegation that included the minister of state for foreign affairs, and the ministers of trade, planning and finance.

Iraq's new Shiite leaders have close ties to Iran, and al-Maliki spent years in Iran and Syria in exile.
In July 2005, former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made a landmark visit to Iran, the first by an Iraqi premier since the 2003 US-led war and occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein.

US officials have accused Iran of not doing enough to stop militants from infiltrating across the shared, 1-thousand mile-long (1,609 kilometre) porous border, however Iraqi officials have said there was no evidence to prove such charges.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has sought closer ties with Iran and to heal scars left by the attritional 1980-88 war that killed more than one million people on both sides.