Iraqi Leader Goes to Iran After Ailing King Stalls Regional Tour
Iraq’s new prime minister will go ahead with a scheduled trip to Iran on Tuesday after a first stop in Saudi Arabia was postponed, pressing on with a mission to shore up his country’s sovereignty and drum up desperately needed investment.
It will be the first foreign trip as Iraq’s leader for Mustafa al-Kadhimi, a former spy chief who escaped Saddam Hussein and lived in exile in the West for years. He’ll be accompanied by a delegation including the oil, electricity and finance ministers.
Iraq’s oil-reliant economy, suffering from years of conflict, political instability and corruption, has been left in tatters by this year’s plunge in crude prices and demand. The coronavirus exacerbated the hardship, and Kadhimi was expected to press for trade and aid while in Saudi Arabia, according to Paul Sullivan, an international security expert at the National Defense University in Washington. The hospitalization of 84-year-old Saudi King Salman on Monday forced the postponement but did not derail the signing of natural gas accords with Saudi Aramco.
“A balancing act is essential for Iraq not be dragged unwillingly into someone else’s conflicts,” said Paul Pillar, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer and non-resident senior fellow at Georgetown University. Additionally, Kadhimi “may hope to exploit the personal trust and good relations with both Iran and Saudi Arabia that he built as an intelligence chief to help mediate a reduction in tension between Tehran and Riyadh,” Pillar said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-20/iraqi-leader-goes-to-iran-after-ailing-king-stalls-regional-tour?srnd=politics-vp
= new reply since forum marked as read
