"I came carrying a letter from the Iranian leadership to the religious authorities in Najaf," Salehi told a news conference in the central Iraq Shiite shrine city.
"I had a good meeting with (Iraq's top Shiite cleric) Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and I also just finished a meeting with Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Said al-Hakim," Salehi said.
"And I will meet Grand Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, and Grand Ayatollah Ishaq al-Fayad in order to give them the message from the Islamic republic," he said, referring to other senior Shiite clerics.
The message "said that the Islamic republic supports the new Iraqi government, and will build relations with Iraq based on non-intervention in its internal affairs, and according to the interests between the two countries," Salehi said.
"We support security, services and rebuilding in Iraq, and we will stand by Iraq until it gets over this distress," he added.
Salehi, who arrived in Iraq on Wednesday and met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, did not indicate if he planned while in Najaf to meet with the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who returned to the city on Wednesday after four years of exile abroad. It is Salehi's second trip abroad since taking over the foreign minister post.
Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s which left almost a million people dead on both sides.
Ties between predominantly Shiite Iran and Shiite-majority Iraq have warmed considerably since the overthrow of Saddam's regime in a US-led invasion in 2003.
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