Iran's Kharrazi Arrives in Iraq

CNN.com:

Iran's foreign minister has arrived in Baghdad for talks with top Iraqi officials, marking the highest-level visit by an official from Iran to its Mideast neighbor since Saddam Hussein's ousting. READ MORE

Kamal Kharrazi arrived in Iraq Tuesday, two days after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit to support the war-ravaged country's political process.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Laith Kuba, said the Iranian envoy was scheduled to hold talks with al-Jaafari and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd.

Ties between neighboring Iraq and Iran improved following the fall of Saddam, who led an eight-year war against Iran during the 1980s that killed more than one million people.

Relations had remained cool after that war, with Iran supporting anti-Saddam groups and the former Iraqi leader hosting the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian militia that fought the Shiite religious regime in Tehran.

But since the U.S.-led invasion swept Saddam out of power, Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim community has risen to power and worked to build close ties with Iran, a Shiite-dominated republic.

Iran, however, has been accused of supporting insurgents in Iraq to destabilize reconstruction efforts by the United States, which regards Tehran as a terror sponsor bent on producing nuclear weapons. Iran denies both claims.

Al-Jaafari, who led anti-Saddam militiamen based in Iraq during part of his two-decade exile, has said Iraq now wants positive relations with Iran.