Iraq will begin paying the dues owed to the Iranian state gas company, announced Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein during his one-day visit to Tehran.
The Ministry’s spokesman, Ahmed al-Sahaf, said that bilateral relations and the issues of common interest between Tehran and Baghdad were reviewed during the visit.
However, political observers believe there's more than the non-payment of dues issue behind the FM's trip, saying that the two sides likely wanted to address the sudden developments at this early stage of US President Joe Biden’s term in the White House.
Following his first meeting in Iran with the Supreme National Security Adviser, the Minister said that security and stability are the basis of economic development, especially for a country like Iraq that has been fighting terrorism and insecurity for years.
He presented the most important steps that the government has taken to facilitate banking transactions between the two sides.
Notably, Hussein arrived in Tehran less than 48 hours after the US bombing in eastern Syria, targeting the Iraqi factions that Washington considers “backed by Iran”, which changed the rules of the game, especially as armed factions vowed to retaliate.
During his meeting with his Iraqi counterpart, the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on the Iraqi government to reveal the perpetrators of the recent attacks on Western interests.
Zarif described the recent attacks as “suspicious”, saying they could be aimed at disrupting Tehran-Baghdad relations as well as security and stability in Iraq.
Zarif also condemned the United States’ dangerous move to attack Iraqi forces in border areas of Iraq and Syria, dismissing the raids as a violation of the two countries’ sovereignty.
The strikes come in light of tensions between Tehran and Washington over the 2015 nuclear deal, amid efforts to revive the agreement which Washington unilaterally withdrew from during the term of former President Donald Trump.
The Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi, is trying to reduce the tension between Tehran and Washington, to ensure the country is not an arena for settling scores between the two parties.
Earlier, Washington announced it had benefited from Iraqi intelligence for the purpose of carrying out the last strike.
In response, many Iraqi parties, led by Hadi al-Amiri’s al-Fatah Alliance, called for Kadhimi to conduct an investigation into the truth of Washington’s allegations.
Later, Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, announced in a tweet that the Iraqi government was investigating the identity of the parties that launched missiles on its territory, but “we did not use Iraqi information to develop our targets for last night’s strikes,” he noted
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the US strikes, calling them "illegal aggression," a violation of human rights and international law, and a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, warning that it would escalate military confrontations and further destabilize the region.
