BAGHDAD: Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir held talks in Baghdad with Iraq’s leadership on Saturday, the first such visit by a chief diplomat from the kingdom since 2003.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi received Jubeir and his accompanying delegation, a statement from his office said, a key step in efforts to normalise frosty ties. Both sides “discussed cooperation in various fields, including the fight against the Daesh gangs,” it said, referring to IS Iraqi forces are currently battling in the northern city of Mosul.

The Saudi minister also met his counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who said in a statement the visit was “the first by a Saudi foreign minister since 2003.” “This visit is to re-establish relations in a more stable way than previously,” a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity. “It’s the first visit of its kind.”

Thamer al-Sabhan, whose credentials were received in January 2016, became the first Saudi ambassador to Iraq in a quarter century, after relations were cut following ex-president Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

He left the same year after Baghdad demanded he be removed following remarks he made to the press about an alleged plot to assassinate him and criticism he voiced of the Hashed al-Shaabi. Hashed al-Shaabi, which have played a key role in the fight against IS, are a paramilitary umbrella dominated by Shia militia and seen by Riyadh as a proxy for arch-rival Iran. Saudi Arabia is very unpopular among Iraq’s Shia majority and often accused of direct support to the IS jihadists that took over a third of the country in 2014.

“Jubeir congratulated Iraq on the victories achieved against Daesh and pledged Saudi Arabia’s support to Iraq in fighting terrorism,” the statement from Abadi’s office said.

It said the minister had also “expressed Saudi Arabia’s willingness to back the stability of liberated areas.” While Iraq has often suffered from being turned into a battlefield where the rivalry of its neighbours Iran and Saudi Arabia played out, the Iraqi government official said there was an opportunity for Baghdad.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2017