Iran and Iraq get closer

Tehran, (Prensa Latina)

The Presidents of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Iraq, Jalal Talaban, advocated for the improvement of their bilateral relations Friday, in a clear rupture with a past that faced them each other for almost 10 years.

Talabani is heading an important delegation of his government and discussed with his Iranian counterpart the ways to give an impulse the links between Iran and Iraq, in the political, diplomatic, economic and commercial fields.

A diplomatic source of Iraq informed that President Talabani and his accompanying delegation met Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran to discuss the last political events in Iraq, and the way to foster bilateral relations.

Iranian state press agency IRNA assured Friday that in his three days visiting Iraq, the Iraqi President would be received by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and Iranian Parliament (Majlis) president Ali Larijani.

Talabani will also be received by Ayatollahs Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hashemi Shahroudi, presidents of the Council for System Convenience and of the Judicial Power of the Islamic Republic of Iran, respectively, among other officials.

Both nations are sharing 870 miles of ground border together, besides having coasts to the Arabian Gulf.

Besides causing more than 600,000 dead people in Iran, and 400,000 in Iraq, the conflict between the two nations threatened the crude oil flux in the zone, for the first time in history, and generated great economic losses in both countries, which are two of the world’s biggest oil exporters.