ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani is expected to travel to the UK on Monday, a source from the prime minister’s office told The New Region on Sunday.

The Iraqi premier will visit the UK upon an official invitation from London. The New Region is yet to confirm the agenda and duration of the Iraqi prime minister’s visit, however The New Region understands that Sudani will stay in London at least until Wednesday.

The visit comes after a meeting with British ambassador to Iraq Stephen Hitchen on December 30, 2024, where preparations for his visit to the UK were discussed after an official invitation. 

Sudani was initially set to visit London in early October, however the visit was then delayed with his media office citing the regional developments at the time.

The visit now comes just days after Sudani concluded a one-day visit to Tehran, where he met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The UK has been a strong ally of Iraq in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS). British forces were part of the US-led global coalition that was deployed to Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government in 2014 to fight the Islamic State (ISIS), which had then overrun large swathes of Iraqi territory in the north and west of the country.