Iraqi parliament speaker to visit Tehran friday

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi plans to pay a visit to Iran at the head of a high-ranking delegation on Friday to attend the Tehran international conference on Palestine. During the four-day visit to Tehran, Nujaifi and his accompanying delegation are due to take part in the 'International Conference on Support for the Palestinian Intifada'. The international conference on the Palestinian uprising is scheduled to be held in the Iranian capital on October 1-2. The Iraqi speaker is also slated to meet with senior Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, to discuss bilateral ties and cooperation and exchange views on the latest developments in the region. Last week, an official in charge of the Iraq parliament's Information and Press Bureau told FNA that Al-Nujaifi is due to "discuss expansion of relations between the two sides and the recent events at the two countries' borders". Iran's border with Iraq has been the scene of clashes between the Iranian troops and the forces of the terrorist PJAK group in the last few months. PJAK, a militant Kurdish separatist group with bases in the mountainous regions of Northern Iraq, has been carrying out numerous attacks in Western Iran, Southern Turkey and the Northeastern parts of Syria where Kurdish populations live.