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Iraqi PM on first visit to Tehran
12.9.2006
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TEHRAN, Iran,
September 12 ,-- Iraq's prime minister will deliver
a blunt message to fellow Shi'ite Islamist leaders
in Iran on Tuesday that they should not interfere in
Iraqi affairs.
It is a message that may please Nuri al-Maliki's
sponsors in the United States, who accuse Iran of
funding and training militants fighting U.S. forces
in Iraq, possibly in response to mounting U.S.
pressure on Tehran to halt its nuclear programme.
Maliki met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on arrival
on Tuesday in Tehran and was expected to meet on
Wednesday Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who
is the highest authority in Iran, and influential
former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Stopping short of explicitly endorsing U.S.
accusations of Iranian "meddling" in Iraq, Iraqi
government spokesman Ali 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."
Iran's official news agency IRNA said Maliki, during
his two-day trip, would discuss "ways to reinforce
the mutual relationship, as well as Iraqi, regional
and world issues".
While officially encouraging Iraq's new, warm ties
to Washington's adversary, there is unease in the
United States at Iranian influence over the Shi'ite
leaders brought to power in elections that followed
the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein. |
Iraqi Prime minister Jawad al-Maliki (L)
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian president
(R)
Photo:AP
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Since forming a national unity government four
months ago, Maliki has vowed to curb militant
Shi'ite factions, some of whom also have links with
movements in Iran, as part of efforts to avert civil
war with Saddam's once-dominant Sunni minority.
Under Saddam's Sunni-dominated secular regime Iraq
fought a bloody eight-year war with Iran in the
1980s.
U.S. 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.
Some leaders in Tehran are also close to the likes
of radical, young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose
Mehdi Army militia is seen as particularly hostile
to the occupying forces.
MEDIATION
Dabbagh said Baghdad saw Khamenei playing a key role
in relations with Iraq and stressed security would
top the agenda.
"We understand that the violence in Iraq is being
fed and financed by others. Some of them are
countries, some are groups ... We'd like
neighbouring countries to share in stopping such
things coming to Iraq," he said.
Some Iraqi Shi'ite leaders have offered to mediate
between Iran and Washington, which have not had
diplomatic relations since Tehran's Islamic
revolution in 1979.
Asked if mediation would feature in Maliki's talks,
Dabbagh said: "Iraqis would like to see a normal
relationship between the United States and Iran ...
Iraq has been used to pass messages between the
United States and Iran. We want to avoid all
tension."
Maliki's visit follows trips to Arab states run by
Sunni Muslims who view with suspicion Iraq's Shi'ite
majority and its ties to non-Arab, Shi'ite Iran.
Should Iraq's sectarian conflict descend into
all-out civil war, some analysts say other regional
powers would be drawn in, with Iran backing the
Shi'ites and the likes of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
states providing help to the insurgent Sunni
minority.
In one of the latest acts of violence, Iraqi
state-run television reported on Tuesday that gunmen
attacked overnight a Shi'ite mosque in a town south
of the ethnically volatile city of Baquba, killing
seven and wounding others.
The rise of the Shi'ite majority has brought to
power in Iraq many leaders who spent long years in
exile in Iran. Though Maliki was mostly based in
Syria, many of those close to him in the Dawa party
found refuge in Iran.
Reuters
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