Mohammad Shia al-Sudani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, arrived in Tehran yesterday on his first visit to Iran and was welcomed by Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi. The coincidence of his visit to Tehran with Iran’s confrontational measures against the positions of Kurdish terrorists has doubled the importance of this trip. After Mohammad Shia al-Sudani took office as a person aligned with the Shia authority of Iraq, there is hope that the relations between Tehran and Baghdad will improve compared to the era of al-Kazemi and the relations between the two countries will expand in the security and economic fields. A goal that the Sudanese travel plans to Iran create great hope for its realization.
Among the regional powers, Iran is the first Sudanese destination
Iraq is currently in a very sensitive situation in terms of security. America continues to maintain its military and economic dominance over Baghdad and is strengthening Kurdish terrorist groups together with the Zionist regime. These supports are in a situation where Turkey and Iran have declared their sensitivity towards the movements of Kurdish groups and have started military measures against them. Turkey is advancing in Iraq under the same pretext, and if Baghdad delays, the northern parts of this country may be lost.
Among the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are seeking to strengthen their factions inside Iraq through lobbying and consultation and are trying to bring this country into civil war and political instability. Meanwhile, Iran is the only one that does not care about Iraq’s territorial integrity and does not seek to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs, although it is taking steps towards disrupting foreign interference in this country. All these factors have made Sudani to put a trip to the countries of the region on the agenda to balance Iraq’s international interactions. Jordan, Kuwait and Iran were the first destinations of Sudanese diplomatic trips. By visiting Jordan and Kuwait, which are two small neighboring countries, the Iraqi Prime Minister first tried to de-sensitize his foreign trips and emphasize his focus on developing relations with neighboring countries, but in the end, between the three main powers of the region, he chose Iran as the first destination. In this regard, yesterday, an official in the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office announced that Al-Sudani will travel to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, after his visit to Tehran. A delay that shows that the current Iraqi government has prioritized its Persian-speaking neighbor over other regional powers in order to expand its interactions.
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The end of the presence of terrorists in Iran’s borders
For years, the presence of Kurdish separatist and terrorist groups in the western borders of Iran has become a problem for the country’s security. Iran has repeatedly warned the authorities of various Iraqi governments about these groups that have been established in Iraq since the time of Saddam Hussein, and has demanded to deal with and expel these groups from Iran’s borders. Ignoring these warnings has caused Iran to directly take action and target the headquarters of terrorist groups with its missiles. The mobility of these groups in the recent disturbances and the attempt to make Iranian cities insecure by sending weapons and terrorists into the country made Iran target the headquarters of these groups once again. Iran’s reaction caused the Iraqi authorities to act with a more serious attitude to address Tehran’s concerns. In this regard, an agreement was reached between the Prime Minister of Iraq, Mohammad Shia Al-Sudani, and the President of the Kurdistan Region, Nichervan Barzani, to form joint units consisting of the army, border guards, and Peshmerga forces, so that the forces of these units will be deployed on the borders of Iran and Iraq as soon as possible, and dozens of border monitoring and control points will be established. According to what a member of the Iraqi Parliament told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed, Al-Sudani and Barzani agreed to stop any government and party support from the Kurdistan Region to the groups opposed to the Iranian regime, and all their political headquarters in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah should be closed. They also agreed on the inspection of Iranian Kurdish camps and the direct supervision of the United Nations on the management of the camps. As Iraqi sources have said, al-Sudani is supposed to inform Iran about the new security agreements with the Kurdistan Region.
Baghdad airport assassination case on the table
After the car carrying Sardar Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis was targeted near the Baghdad airport and led to their martyrdom, Iran reminded the Iraqi side more strongly of its sensitivity towards the presence of American foreign forces in Iraq. The terrorist act of the American government caused the Iraqi parliament to act and pass a resolution for the withdrawal of American troops. The resolution that expired on December 31, 2021, but due to the lack of decisiveness of the ruling body of Iraq at the time, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi was not carried out properly. Now, with the arrival of Mohammad Shia al-Sudani as a figure aligned with the authority of Iraq, there is hope that the Baghdad airport assassination case will be put on the table again with more seriousness, and the heads of the two countries will come closer to each other than before.
Intermediary Tehran Riyadh
Negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which were held in Baghdad until the fifth round, have been suspended after the start of street riots in Iran and the identification of Saudi hands behind the scenes. By starting a new round of negotiations, Baghdad is trying to reduce the level of tensions between the two countries and increase its interests as a peace mediator.
Economic purposes of travel
One of the most important aspects of Sudani’s visit to Iran is the renewal of economic contracts between Iran and Iraq. The Iraqi government has many gas and electricity contracts with Iran. Therefore, Iran is the main support for meeting this need of Iraq, for which, of course, the price must be paid. Although Iraq has tried to meet its needs from several countries in the region, its priority and main supplier of electricity is Iran, so it uses every opportunity to maintain and strengthen these bilateral treaties. On the other hand, Iraq is trying not to limit its economic relations with Iran to the field of energy and to increase its scope. Previously, the scope of economic relations between Iran and Iraq was up to 13 billion dollars, but today Iraq is trying to increase these agreements to 20 billion dollars. Considering the conditions and the domestic market of Iraq, due to the gap in the supply of its basic goods, this country is trying to increase the ceiling of its relations and agreements with Iran through the supply of its basic goods. Apart from the two fields of energy and basic goods, the completion of the Khoramshahr-Basra railway is considered part of the economic contracts of these two countries. This railway line connects Khorramshahr to Basra and then it will extend to Anbar province (one of Iraq’s provinces) and by passing through Deir Ezzor province in Syria, it will reach Syrian ports in the Mediterranean Sea.