http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iraqi-prime-minister-to-visit-iran-for-talks-on-bilateral-relations-islamic-state/BY: Chris Safran
June 16, 2015 5:26 pm
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will travel to Iran Wednesday for talks on bilateral relations between the countries and the war against the Islamic State, his office said.
Al-Abadi will meet with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as a number of other Iranian officials during his one day visit in response to an official invitation.
“I think [the Islamic State] is a failure on the part of the world. There is a lot of talk of support for Iraq, there is very little on the ground,” al-Abadi told reporters in Paris during a coalition meeting on combatting IS. “The problem is not exclusively in Iraq. We are trying to do our part, but Daesh was not created in Iraq.”
Al-Abadi will meet with Iranian leaders just one day after hosting Director of U.S. National Intelligence, James Clapper on Tuesday.
Clapper and al-Abadi discussed “promoting world intelligence efforts and coordination to limit the spread of terrorism and its infiltration into Iraq and the rest of countries,” according to a release from the Prime Minister’s office.
Prime Minister al-Abadi last visited Iraq’s neighbor to its East in October of 2014, shortly after Saudi Arabia and Iran backed his nomination over former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
