Al-Maliki in Iran to talk about U.S.-Iraq deal

BAGHDAD — Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Iran on Saturday for a two-day visit with top leaders, in which he is expected to allay Iranians' concerns about the U.S.' continuing influence over Iraq.

The visit is al-Maliki's fourth since he was elected and comes just days after the U.S. handed over military control of the Green Zone to Iraq and began a drawdown that calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Iran initially opposed the pact, accusing America of seeking to maintain its dominance over Iraq. American officials, for their part, have objected to Iran's influence over next-door neighbor Iraq, including its ability to sway radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

Iran's influence in Iraq has grown significantly since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled the Sunni-dominated government of President Saddam Hussein, a longtime foe of Shiite-run Iran.

Al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, met Saturday with Iranian Vice President Parviz Dawoodi.

Today, al-Maliki is expected to discuss economic, transportation and electricity issues with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Parliament member Abdul Hadi Husseini, a member of al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, said the prime minister's visit was, in part, to "make Iran more comfortable and to remove any fear that Iraq could be used as a base (in the future by Western military forces)."

Iraq's minister of education, Khudair Khuzai, also a member of al-Maliki's party, said al-Maliki had an additional goal: to help improve relations between the U.S. and Iran. Iraq's ministers of trade, transportation and electricity traveled to Iran with al-Maliki. Husseini said Iraq was seeking to buy power from Iran and revive supply lines between the two countries into southern Iraq.

Also on Saturday, U.S. military officials said they shot and wounded an Iraqi TV journalist who, they said, was acting suspiciously and failed to respond to warnings in a neighborhood of Baghdad on Thursday. Beladi television identified the woman as Hadeel Emad, who was taken to a hospital, where her left kidney was removed.