Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraqi-based Shia's highest ranking cleric in Najaf, Iraq paying a visit to the holy shrine of Imam Ali (AS), first Shia Imam. 

The one-hour-meeting at grand Ayatollah Sistani's residence was also attended by Turkish State Minister Zafer Caglayan, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz, and several other Turkish dignitaries, reported Taqrib News Agency (TNA). 

Turkish Prime Minister also visited Iraq's Arbil, by that he became the first Turkish official to visit the Iraqi Kurdistan after years of conflict. 

He said Tuesday that Turkish Airlines will launch flights from Istanbul to Erbil in April to serve what he said “our Kurdish brothers” and the rest of Iraq. By doing so, he said, Turkey continued to end the denial of Kurdish existence in Turkey. 

Becoming the first ever Sunni leader who visited the shrine of Imam Ali, the visit by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the shrine has been seen as a significant step for rapprochement between Sunnis and Shiites in the region.