RABAT, August 20. /TASS/. Iran supports the Iraqi government’s plan aimed at establishing full state control over the weapons held by armed groups operating on Iraqi territory, Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said during a meeting in Baghdad with Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qasim Al-Aboudi.

"The Islamic Republic values its relations with Iraq and supports the government’s program to establish a legal framework for regulating weapons within the country under the control of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces," Galibaf noted. The speaker of the Iranian parliament added that Tehran "is committed to the security agreements concluded between the two countries."

In the middle of last week, Ismail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force, a special operations force within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (an elite unit of the armed forces), made an unannounced visit to Baghdad. According to Al Hadath TV, he met with leaders of several Shiite paramilitary groups and the leadership of the Coordination Framework, a bloc of Shiite parties, which nominated businessman and political newcomer Ali al-Zaidi as prime minister to break a prolonged political deadlock. At the talks in Baghdad, the Quds Force commander urged Iraqi politicians to seek a postponement of the deadline for Shiite militias to hand over their weapons to state control. According to Qaani, "the disarmament of militias [in Iraq] and the transfer of control over them to the state will be a stab in the back for Iran."

In late June, the Iraqi government set the end of September as the final deadline for all paramilitary groups operating within the country to surrender their weapons to the state. Baghdad notified all armed groups of its decision and warned that "the authorities will act in accordance with the law against those who do not surrender their weapons by the specified deadline."