Tehran: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says Iran will stand by its neighbour Iraq in its fight against the extremists of Daesh.
Rouhani told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi on Tuesday that Iran “will remain on the path until the last day,” according to a report by the official IRNA news agency.
Rouhani said Iran will continue to provide Baghdad with military advisers and weapons. He also criticised the US for allegedly failing to sufficiently support Iraq.
It was Al Abadi’s first foreign visit since taking office in September.
“Choosing Iran as my first destination after taking office indicates the depth of ties,” he said, according to IRNA. “Terrorism is a threat to all regional countries and we are sure Iran will stand by us.”
Rouhani, in his Tuesday comments, said greater regional cooperation among affected countries was the only solution to confronting Daesh.
“We have no doubt that boosting friendly relations between Iran and Iraq will secure the interests of both countries and will serve the interests of the region,” he said. “Regional countries should confront terrorism in a united and coordinated way in order to uproot this phenomenon.”
Al Abadi said his country was at war with “terrorists” threatening the region and intent on dividing Muslims.
Iran and Iraq have been close since the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussain in the US-led invasion of 2003, with Tehran’s role becoming increasingly open in recent years.
The relationship has deepened militarily after the rapid offensive by Daesh fighters from Syria deep into Iraq this summer, which continues to pose a major threat to Baghdad.
Al Abadi met with Rouhani and Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri during the one-day visit.
“Iraq is not fighting terrorism only. It is an extensive war with all these groups,” he said, alluding to Daesh and other extremist fighters such as Al Qaida’s Syria affiliate Al Nusra Front.
“It’s a threat to the region and these terrorist groups are trying to create a division between Shiites and Sunnis,” the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.
Before the visit Al Abadi ruled out a foreign troop intervention against Daesh and appeared to impose limits on Iran’s participation also, saying in the holy Shiite city of Najaf on Monday that “no regional power will fight here.”
The lightning surge by Daesh fighters in June led Iran to send weapons to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq and the Islamic republic has also sent military advisers across the border.
The visit was Al Abadi’s first to Tehran since taking over after Nouri Al Maliki’s failed bid to win a new term after this summer’s Daesh offensive brought the country close to collapse.
Backed
Iran had resolutely backed Al Maliki since he took office in Baghdad in 2006, but lost faith in him after the capitulation of the Iraqi military in the face of only a few thousand Daesh militants.
Al Abadi arrived in Tehran just before midnight. He was later greeted by Jahangiri at Saadabad Palace, a former residence of the Shah turned government office and museum.
The military campaign against Daesh, which now encompasses US and other foreign air strikes in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, will dominate his visit to Iran, though economic matters were also discussed during the meeting with Jahangiri, according to IRNA.
Iran has ruled out direct cooperation with the US military in Iraq, but implicitly backed the air strikes before later saying that they were not enough to stop a Daesh push that has reached Baghdad’s outskirts.
Some Iraqi officials and Sunni tribal leaders in areas most affected by the unrest have argued that the world should step up its military involvement from air strikes to a ground intervention against Daesh.
However, Abadi said the Iraqi government would not countenance such a plan.
“I am telling our brothers in Anbar and Salaheddin who asked for foreign ground troops that such an appeal should not be made,” he said in Najaf.
“We don’t need foreign combat troops. And there is no country in the world which would be willing to fight here and give you back your land even if they were asked to.”
The Iraqi prime minister had just met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, a reclusive Iranian-born cleric who is the highest Shiite religious authority in the country.
Iraqi state television said it was the first time in four years that Sistani had met a high-ranking Iraqi government official.
