Iraqi foreign minister due in Tehran, "seeking end to isolation"

Iraqi Foreign Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf is due in Tehran on Friday, apparently seeking Iranian support for the lifting of international sanctions against Baghdad, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported on Thursday.

It quoted foreign ministry sources as saying "deferred issues between Tehran and Baghdad" would be the main topic of Sahhaf's talks.

"An Arab diplomat in Tehran told IRNA that in addition to the formal talks on the improvement of ties between Tehran and Baghdad, Sahhaf will try to win the support of Iran, as the powerful and influential state of the region, to come out of the existing isolation," the agency said.

The speaker of the Iraqi parliament had recently written to President Ali Khatami asking him in his capacity as the president of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) to help lift the UN sanctions against Iraq, IRNA recalled.

It quoted a "political expert" as saying: "Issues such as the full exchange of PoWs and payment of war reparations by Iraq for imposing a war on Iran, still cast a shadow on the efforts to improve Tehran-Baghdad ties; and these are obstacles that Iraq should resolve without seeking excuses."

Sahhaf attended the OIC summit in Tehran last month, the agency said.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.