Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived Thursday in Iraqi Kurdistan to satisfy the autonomous area’s leaders, on the second day of a go to geared toward deepening ties with the neighbouring nation.
It’s Pezeshkian’s first overseas journey overseas since he took workplace in July.
Stepping off his aircraft in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Pezeshkian was welcomed by regional president Nechirvan Barzani on a purple carpet lined with Kurdish Peshmerga forces standing at consideration with rifles at their sides.
Pezeshkian held talks with Barzani and Kurdistan’s prime minister, Masrour Barzani, earlier than heading to Sulaimaniyah, a metropolis the place the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) political occasion wields affect together with within the native safety companies.
On Wednesday, the primary leg of his three-day go to, Pezeshkian introduced in Baghdad the signing of greater than a dozen agreements to strengthen ties between Iran and Iraq.
His journey comes at a time of heightened tensions within the Center East as a result of struggle in Gaza, which has drawn in Iran-backed armed teams and complex Iraq’s relations with the USA.
Iran’s ties with Iraqi Kurdistan have improved in current months, aided by efforts to neutralise Iranian Kurdish opposition teams, which have lengthy operated within the area.
Tehran in 2022 repeatedly carried out strikes on armed teams in Kurdistan, earlier than Iraq in March 2023 signed a safety settlement with Iran. Baghdad dedicated to disarm these teams and relocate them from border areas to camps.
“Now we have succeeded… in regulating the safety scenario within the border areas,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani stated on Wednesday, reiterating Iraq’s refusal to permit any acts of aggression to be launched towards Iran from its territory.
Iran had accused the Iranian Kurdish opposition of smuggling weapons from Iraq and launching assaults on its safety forces.
It additionally accused these actions of fuelling protests that shook Iran after the September 2022 demise of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd arrested by the morality police.
