Heading a high-ranking delegation, Masum arrived at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport and was received by Iran's Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayyebnia.
During his official visit to the Islamic Republic, the Iraqi president is also slated to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, on the sidelines of the GECF Gas Summit on Monday.
Speaking to reporters back on November 17, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh had said the summit would be held with the presidents of Iran, Bolivia, Russia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, and Turkmenistan as well as Algeria’s prime minister in attendance.
“The presence of this number of heads of state in such a meeting is unprecedented,” he said, adding that in the previous summits held in Qatar and Russia, only three or four presidents attended.
The gas summit is a meeting of heads of state and government of GECF member countries. It is an opportunity for heads of state to interact and exchange views.
The summit affords GECF member states the opportunity to discuss at the highest level developments, trends, and policies on energy in general and gas in particular and also to reaffirm their continued support to the objectives of the Forum.
The forum, founded in 2001, unites leading natural gas exporting countries and coordinates cooperation between its member states.