Iranian President Ahmadinejad arrives in Baghdad

Outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on an official visit on Thursday to hold talks with the country's leaders, an official Iraqi television reported. The state-run Iraqia channel showed that the outgoing Iranian president was officially received at Baghdad airport by the Iraqi Vice President Khudair al-Khuzaie and top Iraqi officials. Ahmadinejad is expected to meet with the Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to discuss bilateral ties and the latest political developments in the region, the channel said. His visit came in response to an earlier invitation by his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani, who is now abroad for medical treatment, and the visiting guest will be hosted by al-Khuzaie instead, according to media reports. During his two-day visit, Ahmadinejad will visit the holy Shiite shrine of al-Kadhim in Baghdad, as well as the shrines of Imam Hussein in Karbala, some 110 km southwest of Baghdad, and Imam Ali in Najaf, 160 km south of the capital, the reports said. Ahmadinejad's visit to Iraq, whose term will end in early August, is the second for the Iranian president since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. His first visit to the country was on March 2, 2008. Relations between the Shiite Muslim country of Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq have been picked up considerably since Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime was ousted in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in 1980s, resulting in the loss of 1 million lives.