Iranian minister in Baghdad for talks over Syria

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in Baghdad Sunday on an official visit to meet Iraqi leaders over the Syrian crisis, an official newspaper reported.

"The Iranian Foreign Minister arrived in Baghdad on an official visit and was received by his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari (at the airport)," Xinhua cited state-run Iraqia channel as reporting.

Zarif is expected to hold meetings with Zebari and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to coordinate the point of view of the two countries toward the Syrian crisis and to discuss its consequences on the region in the light of a possible US strike, the government-owned al-Sabah newspaper quoted an Iraqi Foreign Ministry source as saying.

Zarif is also expected to meet some political and religious figures in Iraq, the newspaper said without naming those figures.

Relations between the Shiite Muslim country of Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq have vastly improved since Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime was ousted in 2003.

Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, resulting in the loss of more than a million lives.

--Indo-Asian News Agency

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