{"id":183119,"date":"2026-06-29T16:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/183119\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:02:19","slug":"iraqi-fm-makes-first-visit-to-syria-since-assads-fall-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/183119\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi FM makes first visit to Syria since Assad’s fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein<\/a> on Monday began his first trip to Syria since the December 2024 ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n

Relations between the two countries have faced upheaval since the fall of Assad, who was a close ally of previous governments in Baghdad.<\/p>\n

Iraq at first approached new ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa cautiously but is now seeking to bolster trade and security cooperation with Syria, which is emerging from years of civil war.<\/p>\n

An Iraqi diplomatic source told AFP that Hussein would meet Sharaa as well as Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir.<\/p>\n

The visit seeks to “deepen joint cooperation in various political, security, economic and trade fields” and address regional and international developments, according to a statement from Hussein’s office.<\/p>\n

His meetings will also explore “ways of strengthening coordination and consultation” on shared challenges, it added.<\/p>\n

With its oil exports disrupted due to the US-Israel war on Iran<\/a>, Iraq in recent months has begun exporting limited amounts of oil through Syria.<\/p>\n

Hussein is the first senior Iraqi political figure to visit Damascus since the new authorities took power, though other Iraqi officials have done so.<\/p>\n

Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid al-Shatri visited the month Assad was ousted, while Syria’s Shaibani made his first trip to Baghdad in March last year.<\/p>\n

In May 2025, several powerful Iraqi politicians voiced opposition<\/a> to a planned visit by Sharaa to Iraq for an Arab League summit, with security sources telling AFP an old arrest warrant from his time as a member of Al-Qaeda remained in place.<\/p>\n

Shaibani attended instead.<\/p>\n

Sharaa, whose Islamist group spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad, was imprisoned for years in Iraq on charges of belonging to Al-Qaeda following the 2003 US-led invasion.<\/p>\n

In February this year, the United States completed the transfer<\/a> of 5,700 Islamic State group detainees, including hundreds of foreigners, from Syria to Iraq, after they had been held in Kurdish-run jails in northeast Syria for years.<\/p>\n

In April, Iraq reopened a once-bustling border crossing<\/a> with Syria more than a decade after it was closed to trade following the rise of IS.<\/p>\n

Three crossings between the countries are now operational.<\/p>\n

Iraqi authorities view the new crossing as strategic as it also helps link the country and neighbouring Gulf states to Turkey as part of a regional infrastructure development project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein on Monday began his first trip to Syria since the December 2024 ouster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[672,19976,6610,94,2665,95],"class_list":["post-183119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-ahmed-al-sharaa","tag-asaad-al-shaibani","tag-fuad-hussein","tag-iraq","tag-post-assad-syria","tag-syria"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116834241215012176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}