Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf arrived on Wednesday for high-level talks in Baghdad, where his Iraqi counterpart, Haibat al-Halbousi, called on him to grant special consideration for Iraq’s oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. 

The request is the latest move in Iraq’s broader scramble to keep crude flowing as the US-Iran war drags into August. Baghdad is resorting to everything from offering steep discounts to relying on rival Gulf producers to help export crude as it seeks to keep its oil-dependent economy afloat.

What happened: Ghalibaf arrived in Baghdad for a three-day visit officially focused on bilateral relations and security cooperation. The trip comes at a sensitive moment for Iraq’s government, which is under US pressure to disarm powerful militias with links to Iran. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has set a Sept. 30 deadline for armed groups to hand over their weapons and fully integrate into the state security apparatus, a demand pushed by the Trump administration. 

But the Hormuz crisis also surfaced soon after Ghalibaf touched down. In comments reported by Iraq’s state-run news agency, Halbousi said Iraq was among the countries most affected by regional developments and called for its economic interests to be taken into account by allowing Iraq to export crude through the contested waterway.