The head of Iraq's interim Governing Council went to Iran Saturday for talks on bilateral co-operation over oil and control of the two countries' mutual border, Baghdad officials said.
Shia Muslim cleric Mohammed Bahr Ulum, the current head of the US-appointed council, travelled to Iran with a delegation, an official statement said.
In Tehran, the official news agency IRNA said Ulum and his delegation were expected to arrive in Iran on Saturday for a five-day visit.
The Governing Council chief was to meet with senior officials, beginning with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Saturday, IRNA reported.
"Control of the common borders, the organisation of Iranian pilgrimages to the Shia holy sites in Iraq and co-operation on oil will be on the menu of the talks," an Iraqi ministry adviser told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
Among those accompanying Ulum were council members Samir al-Sumaydah, a Sunni Muslim charged with fashioning Iraq's new media laws, and Ahmed Shayah al-Barak, a Shia head of a lawyers' union and human rights league.
The Iraqi interim council wants to co-operate with Iran to prevent the infiltration of "foreign terrorist elements and to better organise the stay of Iranian pilgrims," the ministry adviser said.
Citing Iran's charge d'affaires in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi, IRNA also said the visit would aim to reinforce bilateral co-operation, particularly on Shia pilgrimages to holy sites.
Iranian police commander Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said the border with Iraq, closed after the deadly March 2 attacks, would be reopened in two weeks, Iran's student news agency ISNA reported Saturday.
On the oil issue, the two countries will study a proposal to construct a pipeline to carry crude from southern Iraq to the Abadan refinery in western Iran, and to import petroleum products, the Iraqi ministerial adviser told.