King Abdullah of Jordan pays first visit to Iraq in a decade

In his first visit to Iraq in more than 10 years, Jordanian King Abdullah met separately with Iraqi President Barham Saleh, who had travelled to Jordan in November, and Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi. They said Jordan and Iraq were looking to strength bilateral ties but did not give additional details. The two countries share a 179-kilometer border, and Jordan is a major importer of Iraqi crude oil. DEBKAfile: The Jordanian monarch is one of a stream of world leaders visiting Baghdad these days, testament to Iraq’s rising importance in the wake of the US pullout from Syria. Abdullah sought an Iraqi guarantee that Iraqi Shiite militias under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards would not be allowed to mass on Jordan’s eastern border.