RAMADI, Iraq: Hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated yesterday in Ramadi, capital of the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, to condemn former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s official visit to Iraq.

Waving Iraqi flags and banners that criticized the influential Iranian Shiite cleric, Sunni tribal and religious leaders marched for an hour in the city, 100 km west of Baghdad, an AFP reporter said.

“The criminal Rafsanjani is a symbol of aggression and evil in Iraq,” read one banner. “Rafsanjani’s visit is inauspicious, a humiliation and a stain on the soil of Iraq,” said another. The former president arrived in Baghdad on Monday on a visit of several days focused on a series of bilateral and international political and economic issues.

Rafsanjani has met senior leaders of Iraq’s Shiite-led government - including Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

He was expected to meet with top Iraqi clerics.

Rafsanjani’s trip follows close on the heels of a visit to Iran by Talabani, and is the latest in a series of exchanges signaling fast improving ties between the Shiite-majority neighbors.

President of Iran between 1989 and 1997, Rafsanjani heads the Expediency Council, the highest tribunal in Iran, and is a powerful figure in his country.

He is also head of the Council of Experts, which supervises the activities of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Iraq in March 2008 in the first ever visit by an Iranian president to the country.

Relations have warmed considerably since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.