BAGDAD (Reuters) – Baghdad and Tehran on Tuesday seek to ease bilateral political tensions, and Iraq’s prime minister said it would allow any risk opposed to Iran from its territory.
Mustafa al-Kadhimi, visiting Tehran and speaking at a news convention with Iranian President Hassan Rohani, alluded to Iraq’s fear of not a battlefield between Iran and the United States, which are his main enemies.
“The other Iraqi people need smart relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran based on the precept of non-interference in the internal affairs of the two countries,” he said at the conference, broadcast live on Iranian state television.
The Iraqi prime minister faces a difficult balance between Tehran and Washington, which have nearly opened a clash in the region, especially on Iraqi soil, over the following year.
At home, Kadhimi faces a growing tension of Iran-aligned parties and paramilitary teams that see him as on the U.S. side because he has indicated that he must restrict the strength of Iran-backed militias and political teams.
Iran’s ideal leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a later assembly with Kadhimi, praised the People’s Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi state-controlled establishment that is a militia organization, many of which are subsidized across Iran.
Khamenei also said Iran would interfere in Iraq-U.S. relations, according to its official website.
Kadhimi, in his prime foreign minister as prime minister, said at his press convention that Iraq was a country “that will not allow any aggression or defiance of Iran from its territory.”
During the first two months of his tenure, Iraqi security forces carried out two raids against the militias, but most of the detainees were temporarily released.
The United States has praised these measures.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made a video of Baghdad on Sunday, preventing a U.S. drone strike from killing Iranian army brain Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi armed forces leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January.
This action has the region at breaking the point of a genuine conflict between the United States and Iran.
Khamenei on Tuesday that Iran would “bring a reciprocal coup” to Washington over Soleimani’s murder.
(Report through Amina Ismail in Cairo, John Davison in Baghdad and Babak Dehghanpisheh; edited through Mark Heinrich and John Stonestreet)
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