Iraqi PM delays official trip to Iran (for "technical reasons")

AP on Yahoo ^ | 9/10/06 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

TEHRAN, Iran - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has postponed his first official visit to Tehran for "technical reasons," officials said Sunday.

Al-Maliki was supposed to visit Iran Monday. It was unclear how long his trip would be delayed.

Iraq's ambassador to Iran, Mohammad Majid al-Sheikh, and Ali al-Adeeb, a legislator and senior member with al-Maliki's Dawa party, confirmed that the trip had been postponed, with both citing "technical reasons." They did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted unidentified Foreign Ministry officials as saying that talks were still under way with Iraqi officials to set a specific date for the visit.

"Al-Maliki's visit to Tehran is definitely going to take place but given the U.N. General Assembly meeting and (Iranian) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's planned visit to some countries in the American continent, officials from both countries are discussing to set the date of the visit either before or after Ahmadinejad's trip," IRNA said.

Plans for a visit by Iraq's Shiite prime minister were announced just days after his deputy returned from Iran.

The trip was meant "to confirm the establishment of friendly and balanced relations based on common interest and respect of the sovereignty of the two countries without any interference in internal affairs," according to a statement by the Iraqi Cabinet last week.

Iraq's new Shiite leaders have close ties to Iran.

In July 2005, former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made a landmark visit to Iran, the first by an Iraqi premier since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

U.S. officials have accused the predominantly Shiite Islamic republic of not doing enough to stop militants from infiltrating across the shared, 1,000 mile-long porous border. But they have still encouraged Iraq to have good relations with all of its neighbors.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has sought closer ties with Iran and to heal scars left by the 1980-88 war that killed more than 1 million people on both sides.

[NormsRevenge]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ,left, listens to speech of the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey,unseen, after signing a document which puts the Iraqi prime minister in direct control of the country's military, at a ceremony, in Baghdad, Iraq,Thursday Sept.7, 2006.Coalition forces handed over control of Iraq's armed forces command to the government on Thursday, a move U.S. officials have hailed as a crucial milestone on the country's difficult road to independence. .(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)