President Barzani, Iranian supreme leader meet in Tehran

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday, continuing his series of high-level meetings in the capital Tehran after being received by Iran’s president. 

Barzani arrived in Tehran on Sunday alongside a high-level delegation from the Kurdistan Region including Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed and several other senior officials. He met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi the following day, and is also set to meet Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and several other senior officials. 

President Barzani and Khamenei “reaffirmed the importance of Iran's relations with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, agreeing on the need to maintain peace and stability, and the expansion of cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region,” according to a statement from the Kurdistan Region presidency.

The two leaders also “discussed the situation in the region, and several topics of common interest.”

It marks Barzani’s fifth trip to Iran in ten years. He last visited the Islamic republic in August 2021 to attend Raisi’s inauguration. 

In the meeting with Raisi, both leaders “stressed developing Iran’s relations with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region based on the principles of good neighborliness and common interests.”

They also highlighted the importance of cooperation and support between Tehran, Erbil, and Baghdad to preserve regional security. 

The Kurdistan Region and Iran enjoy good ties. During a forum in Sulaimani in April, Barzani said that Iran contributed to the economic “success” of the Kurdistan Region.

But that relationship has been strained by Tehran’s attacks on exiled Kurdish groups and deadly missile strikes on locations that it alleged were Mossad bases in the Region.
 
Dilshad Shahab, the spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region presidency, said that, through this trip, President Barzani wants to reaffirm to Erbil’s allies that the Kurdistan Region will never become a source of threat to the interests of its neighbors, especially Iran.

“It is no secret that there has been a kind of coldness in these [Erbil-Tehran] relations in recent times; we want to be assured that the common interests of both sides outweigh the obstacles that may arise,” Shahab told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman.

Updated at 6:03 pm with the statement from the Kurdistan Region presidency