ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is scheduled to visit the Kurdistan Region on Thursday, a day after meetings in Baghdad, Tehran’s consul to Sulaimani announced.
“Despite the intensity of meetings in Baghdad, luckily visiting the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and holding formal meetings with the Region's officials in the cities of Erbil and Sulaimani will be a part of the agenda of the president and his accompanying delegation,” Mohammed Mahmoudian, Iran’s consul in Sulaimani, told journalists during a press conference on Wednesday.
"According to the agenda, the esteemed Iranian president and his accompanying delegation will first visit Erbil tomorrow, Thursday, September 12, 2024," he said.
After Erbil, Pezeshkian will travel to Sulaimani to meet with the leaders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Pezeshkian arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday where he met with Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid and Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. The visit is the Iranian president’s first abroad since taking office in July.
Sudani and Pezeshkian oversaw the signing of 14 memoranda of understanding in multiple fields including the economy, culture, and cooperation between chambers of commerce, the Iraqi premier’s office later announced.
The agreements were supposed to be signed during a planned trip by late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
Security is another area of discussion for Pezeshkian in his meetings in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region.
Iraq and Iran signed a security pact in March 2023 that saw Baghdad agree to disarm Kurdish opposition groups and secure the border regions. Iran had threatened to use military action if Baghdad failed to fulfil the agreement.
“We will discuss all political, security, economic, scientific, and cultural issues,” Pezeshkian told Rudaw on Wednesday, adding that Tehran’s relations with Erbil and Baghdad “are good now and we will make them even better.”
