Iran and Iraq close to security pact

IRAQI Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari arrived in Iran yesterday for the first visit by an Iraqi premier to the Shiite Muslim-dominated state since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Al-Jaafari, heading a high-level delegation including more than 10 cabinet ministers, is expected to sign a security agreement while he is in Iran, a country he spent more than a decade in while fighting Saddam's forces.

Since Saddam's fall, Iraq has tried to build closer ties with Iran and heal scars left by the 1980-88 war that killed more than one million on both sides.

Al-Jaafari was greeted at Tehran's international airport by a senior Iranian minister and is expected to hold talks later with leading Iranian government officials.

Iran's intelligence minister, Ali Yunesi, said Tehran has high hopes for al-Jaafari's trip, which has been planned virtually since he was appointed prime minister after his country's landmark January elections.