Iran's president says ties with Iraq can play significant role in region

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that Iran and Iraq have "exceptional" relation that can play a major role in the region.

Ahmadinejad, who arrived in Iraq's capital Baghdad on Thursday afternoon, said "The Iran-Iraq relation is outstanding and exceptional, which is significant for spreading progress in the region."

"We believe that if the Iranian and Iraqi peoples put their potential together in one path, they would lead the way to solutions to the problems in the region," he said in a briefing after talks with Iraqi Vice President Khudair al-Khuzaie.

The Iranian president also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri la-Maliki.

Maliki said a statement that "Iraq supports peaceful solutions to all problems in the region and adopts an open-door policy in its relations with all countries of the world on the basis of mutual respect and common interests."

"The Iranian companies are invited to take part in the building and reconstruction of Iraq," the statement added.

During his two-day visit, Ahmadinejad is to visit the holy Shiite shrine of al-Kadhim in Baghdad, as well as the shrines of Imam Hussein in Karbala, some 110 km southwest of Baghdad, and Imam Ali in Najaf, 160 km south of the capital.

This is the second visit to Iraq by the Iranian president, whose term will end in early August. His first visit to the country was on March 2, 2008.

Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in 1980s, resulting in the loss of one million lives. But ties between the Shiite country of Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq have picked up considerably since Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime was ousted in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.