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What’s next for GCC-Iraq ties after Sadr's UAE visit?

Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has made trips to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to meet with Gulf leaders, but improving Iraq-GCC ties will be no easy task.
NAJAF, IRAQ - MAY 2:  Shiite cleric Sayed Moqtada al-Sadr sits in his offices beneath a portrait of his late father Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq el-Sadr May 2, 2003 in Najaf, Iraq. A day earlier Iraqi Shiites gathered in the city to mark the anniversary of the death of Mohammed. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

On Aug. 13, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) flew in Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to meet with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at Al-Shati palace in the Emirati capital. The following day, the Sadr movement’s 43-year-old leader met with Sheikh Ahmed al-Kubaisi, a prominent Iraqi Sunni scholar who founded the Ulama Organization in Iraq and resides in the UAE from where he broadcasts weekly sermons to roughly 20 million listeners. The Shiite and Sunni clerics discussed Iraq’s future and that of the Middle East in which both religious leaders stressed the need for unity among Arabs and Muslims across sectarian divisions.

Sadr’s UAE visit came after he called Saudi Arabia a regional “father figure” that promotes peace on the heels of his historic trip last month to the kingdom, where he and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met and discussed Baghdad-Riyadh relations among a host of other regional issues from Jerusalem to Yemen and Syria to Bahrain. During the cleric’s Saudi Arabia visit, Riyadh agreed to provide Iraq with $10 million in reconstruction aid and award figures within Sadr’s office special visas for the upcoming hajj.

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