PM: Iraq’s Airspace Will Not be Used Against Iran 

BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, sworn in last July, made his first official visit abroad to Iraq, seeking to bolster ties amid growing regional tensions.
Iran’s relationship with Iraq is crucial for economic, political and religious reasons — something especially true since the 2003 ouster of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who launched a war against Iran in the 1980s. 
During his trip, Pezeshkian visited Shia shrines in the cities of Karbala and Najaf, a railroad project in southern Iraq to link Basra to Iran and the capital of the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region, Erbil.
Iran and Iraq on Wednesday signed more than a dozen agreements to deepen already strong ties. The three-day trip came amid turmoil in West Asia sparked by the Israeli war on Gaza, which has drawn in resistance groups in the region.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Pezeshkian, Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia’ al-Sudani said both governments opposed any expansion of the war in Gaza.
“In light of the escalation that the region has been going through, we have spoken a lot about the importance of stability,” Sudani said, blaming the occupying regime of Israel for the regional spillover of the war.
Pezeshkian announced that “14 cooperation memorandums were signed between Iran and Iraq, which is the starting point of the expansion of cooperation”.
“If we are together, we will avoid falling into the fire,” he added.
Pezeshkian has vowed to make relations with neighboring states a priority as he seeks to mitigate the impact of U.S.-led sanctions on Iran’s economy.
“Relations with neighboring countries... can neutralize a significant amount of pressure of the sanctions,” he said last month.
Iran has suffered years of crippling

Western sanctions, especially after the United States, under then-president Donald Trump, unilaterally abandoned a landmark nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and major powers in 2018.
Iran has become one of Iraq’s leading trade partners. Non-oil trade between Iran and Iraq stood at nearly $5 billion over the five months from March 2024, Iranian media reported.
Iran also exports millions of cubic meters of gas a day to Iraq to fuel power plants, under a regularly renewed waiver from U.S. sanctions. Iraq is billions of dollars in arrears on its payments for the imports, which cover 30 percent of its electricity needs.
Every year, millions of Iranian pilgrims travel to Iraq’s holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and Pezeshkian also visited the shrines there.
Political scientist Ali al-Baidar said expanding trade ties was a major goal of Pezeshkian’s visit. 
On Sunday, Iraqi Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbassi told pan-Arab television channel Al-Hadath that the U.S.-led coalition would pull out of most of Iraq by September 2025 and the Kurdish autonomous region by September 2026.
Speaking to Iraqi media, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was “very happy that the Iraqi parliament has approved the bill that calls for withdrawal of American forces from Iraq”.
“Peace and security will not be achieved in our region with the presence of foreign forces,” he added.
Pezeshkian also visited the Kurdish regional capital Erbil where he was welcomed by regional president Nechirvan Barzani.
Barzani hailed the first visit by an Iranian president to the region, describing it as an “historic day”.
Pezeshkian also held talks with Kurdistan’s prime minister, Masrour Barzani, as well as veteran Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, who presides over the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
“We hope to expand economic and commercial cooperation with the Iraqi Kurdistan region,” Pezeshkian said, according to a statement from his office.
Pezeshkian later headed to Sulaimaniyah, a city where the KDP’s historical rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), wields influence including in the security services.
During a meeting with Pezeshkian also attended by Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, the Kurdish president pointed to “Kurdistan’s desire to develop relations and expand cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran in all areas”.
“The Kurdistan region will never pose a threat to Iran and neighboring countries,” a statement from Barzani’s office said, adding that Erbil “respects the security deal signed between Iraq and Iran”.
In March last year, Tehran signed a security agreement with the federal government in Baghdad after launching airstrikes against bases of terrorist groups in the autonomous region.
They have since agreed to disarm the groups and remove them from border areas.
“We have succeeded … in regulating the security situation in the border areas,” Prime Minister Sudani said on Wednesday, reiterating Iraq’s refusal to allow any acts of aggression to be launched against Iran from its territory.
Pezeshkian also discussed the sharing of water resources with his Iraqi counterpart, Abdel Latif Rashid, who urged the allocation of water from border rivers through agreements “satisfactory to everyone”.
In Baghdad, Pezeshkian slammed the West, saying that Israel is “committing massacres” in the war in Gaza and using European and American weapons to do so.
“The Israeli entity is committing massacres against women, children, young men and elderly. They bomb hospitals and schools,” Pezeshkian said.
“All these crimes are being committed by using European and American ammunition and bombs,” he added, without elaborating.
In Basra on Friday, Pezeshkian called for unity among Muslim nations.
“If we stand together, our capacity for economic, scientific, and cultural progress will increase significantly and this is why our unity is undesirable to our enemies, and their benefit lies in our discord and division,” he said. “We must all join hands to restore the past glory and dignity of Muslims.” 
Sudani told reporters during a joint news conference with Pezeshkian that Iraq’s airspace will not be used for attacks on the Islamic Republic — an apparent reference to Israel.