Iran and Iraq cement ties with new agreements as President Pezeshkian visits Baghdad

Iraq and Iran pledged to strengthen ties and signed a host of agreements on Wednesday as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited Baghdad on his first official trip abroad since taking office.

The three-day visit by the newly installed leader comes at a time of intense regional tension due to the Israel-Gaza war and signals Iran’s determination to solidify its influence over its historically intertwined neighbour.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani received the Iranian President at Baghdad International Airport. The two leaders later oversaw a signing ceremony for 14 memorandums of understanding, a statement issued by Mr Al Sudani's office said. They also discussed co-operation on security and energy, including the refining industry.

“Aggression against Gaza and the destabilisation of the region's security caused by the Zionist entity” were also on the agenda, the Iraqi statement added. The leaders renewed a call to “end the genocide against the Palestinians and urged the international community to fulfil its responsibilities in this regard”.

On his way out of the airport after arriving in Baghdad, Mr Pezeshkian stopped at a memorial to Qassem Soleimani, a general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps who was killed alongside a senior Iraqi militia leader and their aides in a US drone attack in January 2020.

Mr Pezeshkian also met Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid and was scheduled to meet acting Parliamentary Speaker Muhsin Al Mandalawi, an official with the Iraqi Foreign Ministry told The National. Several top-level officials were accompanying Iran's leader, including his foreign, defence and trade ministers, the official said. Talks with Iranian and Iraqi businesspeople were also planned, as well as with representatives of the Iranian community in Iraq. Several agreements covering different fields were due to be signed.

Mr Pezeshkian and Mr Al Sudani reviewed the progress of a joint committee set up last year between the two countries to discuss expansion of bilateral ties that will hold its next meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi statement said.

Iran's President has made it his priority to improve relations with neighbouring nations as he seeks to ease his country's international isolation and mitigate the impact of US-led sanctions on its economy. Western powers on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions against Tehran for supplying Russia with short-range missiles for use against Ukraine.

“We are planning to sign several agreements,” Iran's state media quoted Mr Pezeshkian, a relative moderate who took office in late July, as saying ahead of the visit.

Oil-rich Basra

Mr Pezeshkian will also travel to the oil-rich southern province of Basra that borders Iran and Kuwait, and to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. His agenda includes visits to Shiite shrines in the cities of Najaf and Karbala to the south of Baghdad.

Iran and Iraq have a long and complex history. The 1980-88 war left an indelible mark on both countries, killing more than a million people and solidifying the rule in Iran of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution.

Iranian influence in Baghdad increased significantly during the conflict that followed the 2003 US-led invasion, with Iran backing Shiite armed groups that formed part of the insurgency against the American presence, and building relationships with successive Iraqi governments.

Iran now has far-reaching political influence in Iraq, with significant power over some armed groups in the state-recognised Popular Mobilisation Forces.

Tehran also sees Iraq as a major market for Iranian goods, from construction materials to food and drink, given sanctions that limit its access to other markets, including Europe. Iraq relies on gas piped from Iran to fuel many of its power stations.

“If another country had been chosen instead of Iraq, it would have been a source of surprise,” Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the local Alforat television channel on Tuesday.

“Our relations with Iraq, both government and people, are exceptional as they go beyond mere relations between two neighbouring countries. For us, Iraq is more than just a neighbouring country, it is a friend and a brother nation with whom we share many religious, cultural, and historical ties.”

Kurdish dissident groups

Mr Pezeshkian will travel to Erbil for talks with Kurdish officials, Iran's official Irna news agency said.

Iran has long accused the Kurdish regional government of harbouring Iranian Kurdish armed opposition groups it considers terrorists, and allowing them to use Iraqi border areas as a launch pad for attacks against Iran. Tehran has launched several missile and drone attacks against the group's hideouts in northern Iraq.

On Tuesday, the Secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, Kazem Gharib Abadi, said Tehran had taken legal action against these groups, and demanded that Baghdad extradite them.

“Within the framework of the Joint Committee for Legal Counter-Terrorism between the two countries, military measures have been taken,” Mr Abadi told the semi-official Mehr news agency.

An extradition request was handed to Iraq in March in relation to 118 key members of the groups, he added. It is still unclear if Baghdad will hand them over to Iran.

Tehran has accused the Kurdish groups of smuggling weapons from Iraq and fomenting nationwide protests that erupted in 2022 after the death of Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, after she was detained for an alleged breach of Iran's strict dress code for women.

In March last year, Tehran and Baghdad signed a security agreement after launching air strikes against bases of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in the autonomous region. They have since agreed to disarm them and remove them from border areas.

The largest of these groups is the Kurdistan Free Life Party, a Kurdish militia that is closely affiliated with Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party, which also operates in northern Iraq. Others include the Komala Party and the Kurdistan Freedom Party. All have sought creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iran.