Maliki’s advisor rejects reports on Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq

A senior advisor of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki dismissed the news reports claiming that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to pay a two-day visit to Baghdad in the next few days. Earlier reports by some media outlets claimed that President Ahmadinejad has been invited by Iraqi Vice-President Khudayr al-Khuzai to visit the neighboring country on July 18. “I have no information about this visit; such a visit is basically unlikely to take place under the present conditions,” Maliki’s Information Dissemination Advisor Ali al-Mousavi said on Sunday. In December, President Ahmadinejad cancelled a planned visit to Baghdad after his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The Iranian president was scheduled to pay an official visit to Iraq late in December to hold talks with senior Iraqi officials on ways to bolster bilateral cooperation. Iran and Iraq have enjoyed growing ties ever since the overthrow of the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, during the 2003 US invasion of the Muslim country.