Iran's foreign minister on Sunday stressed that Iran-Iraq relations would not be "shaken" ahead of the Iraqi prime minister's planned visit this week to regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's visit to Baghdad was the first since the American assassination of top Iranian General Qassim Soleimani outside Baghdad airport in January. The brazen strike catapulted Iraq to the brink of a proxy war.
It also comes as the Iraqi government tussles with Iran-backed militia groups, some of which have become increasingly difficult to control in the absence of Soleimani and senior Iranian militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was also killed in the strike. Iraq raided the headquarters of the Iran-backed group Kataib Hezbollah over a spate of rocket attacks targeting the U.S. in late June. Most of the militants were later released.