Iraqi PM visits Tehran

cctv.com 07-18-2005 09:21

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in Tehran on Sunday. The trip makes Jaafari, who is leading a delegation of 12 ministers, the first Iraqi leader to visit Iran in decades.

Unlike Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi leader who took over from the US-led occupation authority in July 2004, Jaafari's government has expressed its desire to strengthen economic ties with Iran.

It is the first high-level visit between the two sides since the 1980's, when the neighbors engaged in a bitter war, which left over a million people dead.

Earlier in the day, Jaafari met with vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, at the Saad Abad Palace in Tehran, who told reporters "We consider Iraq as our brother."

The Iraqi Prime Minister said he attached great importance to bilateral relation.

Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, Iraqi Prime Minister, said: "The factors and relations that bind us together are expanding in a way that affects both our peoples and countries. We therefore attach great importance to this and believe that the geographical reality combines us together, the fact that you are to our east and we are to your west, did not come about by virtue of any decision."

Bilateral relations between the two countries have surely improved. Iran has agreed to send about 200 thousand tons of flour to Iraq by March 2006. Iran will also guarantee letters of credit issued by an Iraqi bank to a total of 300 million U.S. dollars.

Iraq has already bought heating fuel from this OPEC's second biggest crude exporter. And small amounts of non-oil trade have begun to flow across the border.

Editor:Wang Ping  Source:CCTV.com