TEHRAN - Iran prepared the ground for returning peace to Iraq, Mohsen Hakim, political adviser to the head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said on Friday.

“Tehran used its positive influence (on the Iraqi nation) to prepare the ground for returning peace to Iraq, and the new situation is the result of Iran’s efforts,” Hakim told the Mehr News Agency.
Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday announced a truce to end clashes with Iraqi and U.S. troops nearly a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government launched a crackdown on the Shia militia in the southern city of Basra, and the conflicts spread through southern Iraq and Baghdad.
An Iraqi Shia delegation, led by a prominent lawmaker Ali Adib, held talks with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran last Friday, Hakim said.
A relative stability has been established in southern regions of Iraq, and Basra is in a peaceful condition now, he stated.
Iraqi Defense Minister Abd al Qadir al Mufriji has control over the situation, and the Iraqi army and police are playing an active and influential role throughout Basra, the country’s southern ports, and the oil-rich regions, he added.
The Supreme Council is a key backer of the Maliki government.
Considering the presence of various foreign and domestic players in the country, Iraq’s situation is very “vulnerable”, and the only solution is to maintain “national unity,” Hakim explained.
On Al-Sadr’s call on Iraqis to march against the U.S. occupiers, Hakim said, “This march is held against the occupiers every year on April 9, and this year’s program is not different from that tradition.”
Al-Sadr called on Thursday for a million Iraqis to march against U.S. occupiers.
“The time has come to express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honorable people,” Reuters quoted Al-Sadr as saying