Iranian President with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed in Baghdad

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – President of Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Baghdad, and welcomed by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani on Wednesday.

The Iranian President is said to visit a number of Iraqi Shiite provinces and shrines, as well as expected to arrive in the Kurdistan Region on Thursday.

According to the sources, Pezeshkian will sign a number of security documents with the Iraqi officials. As it was announced before that the Iranian President, Pezeshkian intended to work and strengthen the relations background with neighboring countries, and set as the priority.

“We will visit Shiite provinces and shrines as well as Kurdish cities during our visit to Iraq,” Pezeshkian stated to the press at the airport before leaving for Baghdad.
This is President Pezeshkian’s first visit since taken the presidency office in Iran. In addition to its political importance, it is also an economic and trade exchanges opportunities between the two states.

President Pezeshkian’s visit, to Iraq, lasts three days, it is decided the 3rd day of the visit to the Kurdistan Region. He has 3 important economic elements to dispute with the Iraqi officials, the most important of them is the debts on Iraq to pay back to Iran.

The three most important economic issues are:

- The most important matter between the two states is the arrears that Iraq has to pay off Iran, the money to import the natural gas from Iran for the electricity generation. The media sources indicated that Iran now has about 11 billion dollars, yet Iraq announced that a part of the money paid off to Iranian through the Iranian bank account, yet due to US sanctions, Iran has not received it.

- President of Republic of Iran intended to strengthen the economic relations between Iran and Iraq, as it is estimated that Iran exported around 4.5 billion dollars’ worth of goods to Iraq, in a period of the past five months.

In comparison to last year, that is more than %21, depending on some reports, it is expected that the trade between Iraq Iran probably exceeds 10 billion dollars this year, and Iran aims to bring it to 20 billion dollars.

-Another significant duty for the President of Republic of Iran to visit the Shalmcha railway, it is a line train network connects Iraq to Iran from Basra.

Last year, the cornerstone of Shalmcha-Basra railway was set. The line is planned to be used to transport pilgrims to the shrine places in Shiite zones, as well as for the purpose of trading use.