TEHRAN -- President Ebrahim Raisi said here Thursday Iran has always supported the establishment of a strong and powerful parliament and government in Iraq.
In a meeting with visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, Raisi hailed peaceful parliamentary elections recently held in Iraq.
The president said Iran regards any form of insecurity in Iraq as detrimental to its own, adding any move threatening stability in Iraq is not acceptable.
“The principled policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to support the stability of Iraq and authority of its government,” he said.
President Raisi touched on the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq, saying “the achievement is the outcome of the resistance of the Iraqi nation and its officials, because the Americans have never left any place where they have been militarily present, except in cases where they have faced resistance”.
The agreement to pull out all American combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year was reached in July following persisting demands by Iraqi lawmakers and community leaders after the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad.
A senior Iranian Judiciary official said Thursday Iran and Iraq had concluded their second session of a joint committee investigating the assassination.
In the meeting, Kazem Gharibabadi said, the two countries reaffirmed their serious and firm determination to identify, prosecute and punish all those involved in deciding, planning and implementing this criminal act.
“Documents and information related to the role and interference of the American defendants were presented by the Iranian delegation to the Iraqi side, and it was decided that complementary investigations would be carried out by the judiciaries of the two countries in this regard,” he said.
The two sides also emphasized that they would use legal and judicial capacities at national and international levels to deliver justice and prevent the occurrence of such criminal acts, Gharibabadi added.
Elsewhere in his remarks, President Raisi commended efforts by the Iraqi government to help repatriate the late Iranian ambassador to Sana’a, Hassan Irloo, who passed away of COVID-19 complications amid a Saudi siege on Yemen.
“Relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq are based on friendship as well as deep and broad religious, cultural and historical commonalities, and there exist a special relationship in various bilateral, regional and international fields,” the Iranian president said.
He said a further enhancement of Tehran-Baghdad relations is in the interest of both countries and the region.
The Iraqi foreign minister, for his part, praised Iran’s firm support for his country’s stability and security.
The Iraqi government and nation, he said, have always hailed Iran’s support for their country’s sovereignty and political stability.