(CNN) -- Iran is ready to expand military and security cooperation with neighboring Iraq, a prime Iranian military official said -- per week when U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to determine, boost and expand every kind of military, defense and security cooperation with the friendly and brotherly nation of Iraq," Iran's soldiers chief of workers Hassan Firouzabadi said, in keeping with a report Sunday by the semi-official Fars news agency.
The Middle East neighbors have enjoyed nearer ties in recent years, particularly as Iraq's Shia Muslim majority has solidified its power within the absence of former leader Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim. Iran's theocracy is Shia-led.
The development comes as Iran is flexing its naval muscles within the region by staging war games
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The drills are the biggest ever planned by Iran and are being staged in a locality that stretches from the japanese a part of the Strait of Hormuz within the Persian Gulf to the the Gulf of Aden, Fars reported last week.
The maneuvers began on Saturday.
"These war games are a warning to the western countries regarding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz," Zohreh Elahian, a member of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Monday, in keeping with Fars. "If any threat is posed to Iran, the Islamic Republic is capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz."
The strait may be a slim shipping channel that leads in and out of the Persian Gulf between Oman and Iran. it's strategically necessary as a result of oil tankers carrying Middle East oil travel through it.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq offers Tehran a lot of freedom to exert its influence in Iraq, analysts say.
"It won't have negative effects against Iran," said James Gelvin, a history professor at the University of California at l. a. , regarding the U.S. pullout.
Mike Breen, vp of the progressive Truman National Security Project in Washington, described the ties between Iran and Iraq as "complicated."
"I would say it's ahead of time to inform as a result of the Iraqi folks and therefore the Iraqi government are solely starting to write ensuing chapter in their nation's history, and that they have an advanced relationship with their neighbor Iran, and that is not continuously been a positive relationship," Breen said.
The nations fought a protracted military conflict between 1980 and 1988, within which up to one.5 million folks died. Iran accepted a U.N.-mandated cease-fire in July 1988.
Doc: CNN News
