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Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid arrived here on an official visit on Wednesday for the first time in decades to meet with Iraqi leaders, the Iraqi foreign minister said.
In a statement on its website, the ministry said that "Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari received this evening at the Baghdad International Airport his Indian counterpart Salman Khurshid and his accompanying delegation."
During his several days visit, Khurshid will meet with Iraqi senior officials, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, aiming at strengthening historical relations between the two countries, the statement said.
The Indian guest's visit to Iraq, which came in response to an invitation from Zebari, is the first for senior Indian official in more than two decades when then Indian foreign minister IK Gujral visited Iraq in 1990 to help evacuate the Indian nationals due to the outbreak of the Gulf War.
According to media reports, Iraq, which has the third largest oil reserves in the world, has replaced Iran to become India's second-largest exporter of crude oil after Saudi Arabia.
