President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is set to become the first Iranian leader since the revolution to visit Baghdad after the Iraqi foreign ministry announced he had accepted an invitation.

The visit was confirmed by the Iranian president’s office, but no firm date has been agreed. The visit would mark a breakthrough in relations between Iran and Iraq, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It would also represent a challenge to American influence in Iraq, at a time when the U.S. and Iran are vying for regional supremacy.
There will be a Security Council debate next month on a new sanctions package aimed at forcing Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. A draft resolution, agreed by the council’s five permanent members and Germany at a meeting in Berlin on Tuesday, marginally increases sanctions imposed last year.
The threat of new sanctions was shrugged off Wednesday by the chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, who insisted that Iran had the right to develop a nuclear industry. “We need 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity and for this we have to build 20 nuclear power plants,” Jalili said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has given Iran until mid-February to resolve outstanding questions about its past nuclear activities, and the agency’s report could have an impact on the timing and severity of the final sanctions resolution. Jalili held talks with the European foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who has served as a negotiator on the issue for the major powers.
A U.S. national intelligence estimate published in November concluded that Iran had no covert nuclear weapons program.
(Source: The Guardian)