At the start of a two-day visit, Iraq's prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has held talks in Tehran with the country's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iraqi state television, Iraqiya, reported that the two discussed "bilateral arrangements" but did not disclose further details.

Al-Maliki is expected to have delivered a blunt message to Ahmadinejad, demanding that Iran should not interfere in Iraq's affairs.

It is a message that may please the Iraqi prime minister's sponsors in the United States, who accuse Iran of funding and training fighters engaging US forces in Iraq.

Before the meeting, Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said Iraqis no longer wanted to suffer for "messages between the United States and Iran".

Al-Maliki will also meet Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on his first official visit to the country.

Stopping short of explicitly endorsing US accusations of Iranian "meddling" in Iraq, al-Dabbagh said on Monday: "We want to pass a message to the Iranian leaders that Iraq needs good relations with neighbouring countries, without interference in our internal affairs."

US and British officials say high-powered explosives used against their troops in the past year have been supplied through Iran, though not necessarily with government approval.

The visit of the Shia prime minister, who lived in Iran during the 1980s when Baghdad was at war with Tehran to escape persecution of his Dawa party, is his first since becoming head of the Iraq government.

Mediation

al-Dabbagh said that Baghdad saw Khamenei playing a major role in relations with Iraq and stressed that security would top the agenda.

Some Iraqi Shia leaders have offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington, which have not had diplomatic relations since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979.

Asked whether such mediation would feature in al-Maliki's talks, al-Dabbagh said: "Iraqis would like to see a normal relationship between the United States and Iran.

"This situation, we are paying for it in Iraq. Iraq has been used to pass messages between the United States and Iran. We want to avoid all tension."

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. (AFP)