Iraq PM in Saudi Arabia ‘to upgrade strategic ties’

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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is meeting with the Saudi officials in Riyadh on Sunday to upgrade strategic relations.

The meeting is viewed as a sign of warming relations between the Arab neighbors.

Abadi arrived in Riyadh on Saturday when the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also landed in Saudi Arabia for his second trip to the region in recent months to make a fresh effort to calm a crisis between Doha and Riyadh.

On Sunday, Abadi will attend a meeting in Riyadh to lay the foundation for a joint Saudi-Iraqi coordination council. Tillerson is also set to take part in the meeting.

Abadi's visit coincides with Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh's high profile tour of Baghdad where he called for enhanced economic cooperation and praised existing coordination to boost crude oil prices.

In a speech at the opening of the Baghdad International Exhibition, Faleh said cooperation between Iraq and Saudi Arabia contributed to “the improvement and stability we are seeing in the oil market”.

Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh is the first Saudi official to make a public speech in Baghdad in decades. /Reuters Photo ‍

"The new Iraq [is] on the ambitious road to prosperity and growth while strengthening its relations with the world," he said, calling for increased economic cooperation between the two countries at all levels, saying Saudi Arabia is implementing measures to facilitate the flow of goods and services between the neighbors.

The two countries began taking steps towards detente in 2015 after 25 years of troubled relations starting with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that resulted in Riyadh severing ties with Baghdad and closing its frontier posts with its northern neighbor.

Ties remained tense even after Saddam's ouster in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, since when consecutive Shiite-dominated governments in Baghdad have remained close to Tehran.

But a flurry of visits between the two countries this year appears to indicate a thawing of relations.

Iraq is eyeing economic benefits from closer links with Riyadh as both countries experience extended oil slump. Saudi Arabia is also attempting to counter Iranian influence in Iraq, which lies on the fault line between Shia Muslim power Iran and the Sunni-ruled countries.

Saudi Arabia is the biggest oil producer of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Iraq is the second biggest.

A Flynas operated Saudi commercial airplane landed in Baghdad on Wednesday for the first time in 27 years.

The two countries in August said they planned to open the Arar land border crossing for trade for the first time since 1990.

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters