Abbas Araqchi, said in a press conference “Ahmedinejad will visit Iraq at the end of this week due to a former invitation by his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani.”
There had been contradictory reports on the visit by Ahmadinejad, the Iranian regime’s outgoing president.
The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s spokesman said on Sunday Ahmadinejad arrives in Baghdad on Thursday and will also meet Maliki.
Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq in 2008 prompted widespread protests by Iraqi political personalities and parties critical of Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq.
Demonstrators marched in the streets chanting anti-Ahmadinejad slogans. Many held banners including one that read: “We condemn visit of terrorist and butcher Ahmadinejad to Iraq.”
The protesters carried banners reading “No, no to the Iranian regime.” They said Iranian regime and its president were meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq and promoting religious hatred and inciting sectarian violence.
They distributed leaflets reading “Iraq is not for sale.”
in a joint statement, over 130 Iraqi tribal leaders from the Shiite-dominated provinces of southern Iraq also denounced Ahmadinejad’s visit.
“Since five years ago Iraq has turned into the scene of the Iranian regime’s meddling and aggression. Everyday hundreds of Iraqis are victims of the Iranian exported terrorism. In southern Iraq we are witnessing the murder of our children and ransack of our oil and other national wealth by the criminal elements of the Iranian regime,” the statement said.
In late 2007, more than 300,000 Shiite Iraqis, including hundreds of tribal leaders from the southern provinces, signed a petition condemning the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq and supporting the presence of the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), in Iraq.