Ahmadinejad may visit Iraq: report

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accepted an invitation to visit neighboring Iraq, Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday, a move that would be unlikely to be welcomed by the United States.
Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had invited Ahmadinejad after Maliki visited Tehran on August 8-9, but added a final decision had yet to be taken.

"When a definite decision about the trip is made, the timing will be announced to the public," Mottaki told reporters in the northeastern city of Mashhad, according to the ISNA news agency.

With Shi'ite Muslims now also in power in Baghdad, ties have strengthened between the two oil-rich states since 2003, when U.S. forces toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab who waged an eight-year war against Shi'ite Iran in the 1980s.