Iran offers to help Iraq

Iran on Tuesday offered to help war ravaged Iraq establish security and stability.

The offer came after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki held talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on his first official visit to the Islamic Republic.

"We will give our full assistance to the Iraqi government to establish security in (Iraq). Strengthening security in Iraq means strengthening security and stability in the region," Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference after their meeting.

Maliki, speaking through a Persian translator, said: "This visit will be useful for cooperation between Iran and Iraq, in all political, security and economic fields."

It had earlier been said that Al Maliki would tell fellow Shiite Muslim leaders in Iran that Tehran should not interfere in Iraqi affairs. "We want to pass a message to the Iranian leaders that Iraq needs good relations with neighbouring countries, without interference in our internal affairs," , Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh told reporters.

"We understand that the violence in Iraq is being fed and financed by others. Some of them are countries, some are groups ... We'd like neighbouring countries to share in stopping such things coming to Iraq," Dabbagh had said.

Maliki is due to later meet Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who is the highest authority in Iran, and influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Wednesday.

Under Saddam's Sunni-dominated secular regime Iraq fought a bloody eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s.