Iraq's Prime Minister Calls for Closer Saudi Ties Ahead of Gulf Tour

Iraq's prime minister made his case to the Gulf in a newspaper article on Tuesday, ahead of a planned tour of the region. Writing in the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi called for closer economic and security cooperation between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Al-Zaidi said the two countries' security and stability are connected, and that trust between them has made real progress. He said Iraq wants a balanced foreign policy, able to talk with every regional power without joining competing blocs, and he repeated that Iraqi territory must not be used as a launch point for attacks on neighbours.

The article landed a day before his planned Gulf tour, which is expected to start in Riyadh today before he travels on to Kuwait. No postponement was reported on Tuesday, even with Riyadh's airport closed. A government source told Shafaq News the talks could include reviving a long-idle oil pipeline from Iraq to the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu. That pipeline detail is reported, not confirmed.

There is a second Iraq date to watch. Parliament's media office said the chamber will meet on Thursday with a single item on the agenda: a vote on the deputy prime ministers and the vacant ministerial posts in al-Zaidi's government. Nine posts, including defence and interior, have been empty since the government was approved in May, and al-Zaidi himself asked for the session.

Lawmakers have told Iraqi media that most of the vacant posts are now agreed between the political blocs, although the names circulating for individual ministries are claims from those talks and could still change before Thursday's vote.

From the October 14 episode of The World Briefing Room.