Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi arrived in Damascus on Wednesday, October 28, for talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa focused on oil exports, trade and security, the first visit by an Iraqi head of government since Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024, according to AFP, Al Jazeera and Asharq Al-Awsat.
Airport welcome and talks at the People’s Palace
Syrian state television reported that al-Sharaa received al-Zaidi and his delegation at Damascus International Airport. The two leaders then met at the People’s Palace, according to a Reuters photo caption carried by Al Jazeera. It is al-Zaidi’s first official trip to Syria since he took office in May, TRT World noted, and follows a first meeting between the two men in New York in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
According to the Iraqi News Agency (INA), cited by Al Jazeera, al-Zaidi described Iraqis and Syrians as “one people in two countries” and spoke of developing economic and social partnerships, strengthening security cooperation and working toward regional stability. Al-Sharaa expressed “great appreciation” for the visit and stressed the depth of bilateral ties, INA reported. Syria’s presidency said the talks covered “security, economic and trade cooperation” as well as regional developments, AFP reported. Al-Zaidi also visited the Sayyida Zeinab shrine south of the capital, his office said.
Banias pipeline at the centre of the agenda
Energy dominated the discussions. Baghdad said the leaders addressed exporting Iraqi crude through the Banias pipeline on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, a route with a capacity of up to two million barrels per day, according to AFP. Talks also covered raising trade volumes and joint agricultural projects aimed at food security, INA said.
The push reflects disruption to Gulf shipping. Iraq began exporting limited quantities of oil by truck through Syria earlier this year after maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted by the outbreak of the regional war, AFP and Asharq Al-Awsat reported. In July, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding to revive the Haditha-Banias pipeline, with a consortium of three companies, including US major Chevron, set to carry out the project. No volumes or new contracts were announced on Wednesday.
Damascus, for its part, is seeking to position Syria as a transit hub for regional trade as countries look for alternatives to the Hormuz route. The two neighbours share a border of about 600 kilometres.
Detainees and border security
Security also featured prominently. In February, the United States transferred more than 5,700 Islamic State detainees from over 60 countries to Iraq from prisons in northeast Syria run by Kurdish-led forces. In an interview broadcast on Tuesday by Iraqi channel Dijlah, al-Sharaa said some of the roughly 3,000 Syrians among them had “no connection” to the group and that talks were under way to classify their cases. “Syria must bear responsibility for those people and not shift this burden to Iraq,” he said, as quoted by AFP.
In the same interview, al-Sharaa said the Syrian-Iraqi border was “completely” secure, TRT World reported, and described relations with Iraq in terms of “great historical and economic commonalities” rather than sectarian divides.
A cautious rapprochement
Baghdad initially approached Syria’s new authorities with caution after Assad’s fall, but senior Iraqi political, intelligence and judicial officials have since travelled to Damascus, Asharq Al-Awsat noted. Al-Sharaa told Dijlah that “something positive has been built” in relations over the past year and a half, particularly on economic matters.
Neither government had released a joint statement or announced new agreements by Wednesday evening. Officials on both sides have presented the visit as a step toward closer economic integration rather than a single deal-signing event.
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