The Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi held a joint press conference with the visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi after their meeting on Sunday afternoon.
The president pointed to the deep-rooted ties between Iran and Iraq and noted that Iraq is the biggest trade partner among the neighbors for Iran.
"We have the closest relations among neighboring countries with Iraq," Raeisi said adding that during earlier today's meeting, the political and economic relations between the two countries were discussed and economic relations between the two countries were decided to increase.
He added that the two sides decided to expand their relations in the field of political, economic and trade and also decided to connect Shalamcheh railway to Basra as soon as possible.
According to the Iranian president, new steps would be taken to facilitate banking and monetary relations between the two countries.
Raeisi also praised al-Kadhemi's government for facilitating the pilgrimage for Iranian pilgrims, adding that the Iraqi government has agreed to provide more facilities to the Iranian pilgrims.
"We believe that dialogue among statesmen in the region will solve the problems," he went on to emphasize.
Elsewhere, the Iranian president said that "The Zionist regime's attempts to normalize its relations with regional countries will not create security for the regime."
The Iraqi prime minister, for his part, said that, "Today we agreed to increase trade relations and plan a timetable for pilgrimage trips [to Iraq]."
Al-Kadhimi also said, "Our relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are very important and efforts made in this regard are in line with the interests of our nations."
KI