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BAGHDAD — Iran’s hard-line president has set March 2 for the start of his landmark visit to Iraq, officials said Thursday, but the Iranians postponed the next session of security talks with the U.S.

The announcements came as U.S. officials sharpened their rhetoric against Iran. The No. 2 U.S. military chief in Iraq wrapped up his command with a warning that Tehran wants to keep Iraq’s government weak to block any challenges to Iranian influence.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani during his two-day visit, according to an Iraqi government spokesman.

Ahmadinejad’s trip was announced last month, but Iraqi officials didn’t give a date until Thursday. It will be the first official visit to Iraq by an Iranian leader since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.

The countries will discuss “bilateral relations and joint projects,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

The two neighbors fought a ruinous eight-year war in the 1980s that left an estimated 1 million people killed or wounded. But relations have improved since Saddam Hussein’s regime fell in 2003.

Underscoring the persistent violence facing Iraqi civilians despite security gains in recent months, a car bomb parked outside concrete security barriers tore through a bustling market Thursday in Baghdad’s main Shiite district of Sadr City, killing at least four people and wounding 28, police and hospital officials said.

The U.S. military put the casualty toll at two killed and 25 wounded and said it was not clear what caused the blast.

Separately, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr extended condolences over the assassination of Lebanese Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in a car bombing Tuesday in Damascus, Syria. Hezbollah and its top ally, Iran, have accused Israel of orchestrating the killing, but the Jewish state denies involvement.