Tehran, Iran, Aug. 19
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Iran and Turkey, after having pledged cooperation to fight the critical situations in Syria, are likely to broaden their scope of cooperation into Iraq.
Salim al-Jabouri, speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, will visit Tehran Aug. 20, IRNA news agency quoted from a statement by the Iraqi parliament Aug. 19.
But after the Tehran trip, al-Jabouri is also going to visit Turkey. The news comes as Iran and Turkey have started to boost their ties over the Syrian crisis.
Turkey recently announced intention to work with Iran and Russia to fight terrorism in Syria. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Ankara Aug. 12 and Tehran will be host to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Aug. 24.
Al-Jabouri will meet his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani and foreign minister Zarif while in Tehran.
His trips to Tehran and Ankara will serve to “review the developments of the region and Iraq,” the Iraqi parliament said in its announcement.
“Talks on the operations to free the Nineveh Governorate will be on agenda,” it said, adding, “The issue is in need of more cooperation between Iraq and regional countries, such as Turkey and Iran.”
Syria and Iraq faced the attack of the “Islamic State” (aka IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) terrorist group in mid-2014, a plague that has been lingering on so far, with great loss for both countries.
Iran has been dispatching military consultants to both the war-torn countries to help fight the terrorists.
On Aug. 16, the country also opened an air base to Russian bombers for launching attacks on terrorists in Syria.