NAJAF, Iraq: Iran's acting foreign minister courted top clerics in Najaf, the Iraqi religious heartland Thursday, the second day of a visit to Iraq aimed at boosting ties between the Shiite-majority neighbours. “I came carrying a letter from the Iranian leadership to the religious authorities in Najaf,” Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference in the central Iraq Shiite shrine city. “I had a good meeting with (Iraq's top Shiite cleric) Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, and I also just finished a meeting with Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Said al-Hakim,” Salehi said. “And I will meet Grand Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, and Grand Ayatollah Ishaq al-Fayad in order to give them the message from the Islamic republic,” he said, referring to other senior Shiite clerics. The message “said that the Islamic republic supports the new Iraqi government, and will build relations with Iraq based on non-intervention in its internal affairs, and according to the interests between the two countries,” Salehi said. “We support security, services and rebuilding in Iraq, and we will stand by Iraq until it gets over this distress,” he added. The US has in the past accused Iran of backing various militias within Iraq. An April 2009 US diplomatic cable published in November by whistleblower website WikiLeaks said the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force was “active in Iraq, conducting traditional espionage and supporting violent extremists as well as supporting both legitimate and malign Iranian economic and cultural outreach.” – Agence France
