Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that his Baghdad visit due to go ahead Sunday would serve regional peace. "This visit will serve regional peace and stability and eventually benefit all relevant sides," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with state television network IRIB.
Ahmadinejad, who is scheduled to go to Baghdad as the first-ever Iranian head of state to visit Iraq in decades, rejected speculation that the visit was aimed at provoking the United States.
"We further hope that the visit will strengthen the legitimate government in Iraq and prepare grounds for an end of (foreign) occupation," he added.
Ahmadinejad said that except a certain period of the Saddam Hussein era - when the two states were engaged in the 1980-1988 war - the two countries have lived peacefully together and "this will also be the case in the future."
A foreign minister official said earlier Saturday that the aim of Ahmadinejad's state visit to Baghdad was the creation of "borders of peace."
"We should avail ourselves of this historic occasion to realize the ultimate aim of creating borders of stable peace and friendship," Deputy Foreign Minister Ali-Reza Sheikh-Attar told the official news agency IRNA.
"The only hurdle for realizing this aim is the interference of aliens in Iraq but we are confident that the wisdom of Iraqi leaders and the country's religious and cultural bonds will eventually make this aim come true," the Iranian official said.
Iran and Iraq were involved in a devastating eight-year war (1980- 1988) in which hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers were killed and injured and vast border areas have not yet been fully reconstructed after almost two decades.
Following the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baath regime, the two sides however decided to forget the past and start a new era of cooperation.
Iran has constantly denied US allegations of supporting and providing weapons to insurgents in Iraq and said that it would regard Iraq's peace and security as its own.
