Iran FM Meets Iraqi Political Leader
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with Head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Ammar al-Hakim, on Monday.
During the meeting, Zarif praised the Hakim family for its great role in bringing about solidarity among Iraqi people, and paid tribute to late Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who was one of the foremost Shiite Muslim leaders in Iraq until his assassination in a bombing in Najaf, in 2003.
Ammar Hakim, for his part, pointed to the ongoing crisis in Syria, and condemned the use of chemical weapons in that country.
The prominent Iraqi politician, who leads the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, also condemned any military action against Damascus.
His comments follow recent war rhetoric by the US which has been trying to ramp up support for military intervention in Syria, after it accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons against rebels in the suburbs of capital Damascus on August 21, a charge Syria has strongly denied.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, heading a high-ranking delegation, has travelled to Iraq to meet a number of senior Iraqi officials and discuss the latest regional developments with them.
As part of his first trip abroad as Iran’s foreign minister, Zarif arrived in the Iraqi city of Najaf on Monday and is scheduled to meet a number of Iraqi clerics there.
Iran and Iraq, the two neighboring countries in the Middle East, share common concerns, especially over the Syrian upheavals.
