Baku, Azerbaijan, July 17
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iraqi new parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri will visit Tehran on July 22 to hold talks with the country's authorities.
Iranian MP Hossein Sheikholeslam said that the Iraqi speaker was invited to attend the meeting of an inter-parliamentary troika of Iran, Mali, and Sudan which is scheduled to be held on July 22 in Tehran to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip, which has left at least 209 Palestinians and one Israeli dead in more than a week of fighting, Iran's Fars news agency reported on July 17.
Sheikholeslam, an advisor to Iran's parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on international affairs, added that Pakistani, Syrian and Palestinian officials also were be invited to the meeting.
It should be noted that Jabouri, a well-known Sunni politician, won an absolute majority, 194 out of the 273 votes, from Iraqi lawmakers and was elected as parliament speaker on July 15. He was nominated by the country's main Sunni political coalition.
In a congratulatory message to Jabouri, Ali Larijani said that the Islamic Republic fully supports Iraq's independence, national sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity. Larijani also expressed confidence that the Iraqi government and nation would overcome the current difficult situation in the country.
This comes as the Iraqi forces are fighting against Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants, who have taken control of large swathes of the country and threatened to take the battle to the capital, Baghdad.