Ariana News Agency-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Barham Salih’s back-to-back visits to Iran and Saudi Arabia reflect the delicate balance Iraq seeks to maintain in a region where its two powerful neighbors are battling for supremacy.<\/p>\n Salih was received at the airport in Riyadh by the province’s governor and other Saudi officials. King Salman held a lunch in honor of the Iraqi president with ministers and high-level princes in attendance.<\/p>\n The state-run Saudi Press Agency released few details about Salih’s talks with the monarch.<\/p>\n On Saturday, Salih was in Tehran where he pledged to improve trade ties less than two weeks after the U.S restored oil sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord.<\/p>\n Iran has had major influence over Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, and is a key supplier of electricity, gas and goods to Iraqi markets. The two countries on Saturday vowed to expand trade to $20 billion a year, from $8.5 billion in 2018, despite the punishing U.S. sanctions against Iran.<\/p>\n Iraq is Iran’s second-largest market after China, buying everything from food and machinery to electricity and natural gas.<\/p>\n But Saudi Arabia has been steadily courting Iraq in recent years, following a quarter-century estrangement brought about by Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister was in Baghdad to discuss stabilizing oil prices in the wake of the latest U.S. sanctions against Iran.<\/p>\n A flurry of meetings between Saudi officials and the new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi Riyadh in recent weeks suggest the Gulf kingdom is aiming to counter Iran’s economic footprint in Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saudi Arabia’s King Salman received Iraq’s president in Riyadh on Sunday, a day after the Iraqi official visited the kingdom’s rival, Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_mat_hreflang_tags":[],"addvideo":"","video_duration":"","farsit":"","target":"0","top_stories":"0","top":"0"},"categories":[305],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"acf":{"myctype":"change","target":false,"top_stories":false,"top":false,"farsit":""},"yoast_head":"\n