Iraqi Prime Minister Makes First Official Visit to Iran
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Iraq's prime minister received a red-carpet welcome at the Iran's presidential palace on Tuesday at the start of his first official visit to the Shiite Muslim country since taking office in May, state-run television reported.
Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were expected to cover regional issues and joint projects in energy and trade.
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Iraq's new Shiite leaders have close ties to Iran, and al-Maliki spent years in Iran and Syria in exile.
In July 2005, former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made the first visit to Iran by an Iraqi premier since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam.
U.S. officials have accused Iran of not doing enough to stop militants from infiltrating across the shared, 1,000 mile-long porous border, but Iraqi officials have said there was no evidence to prove such charges.
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Since Saddam's fall 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.