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Massoud Barzani: US captured 'wrong Iranians'
7.4.2007 |
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President of the Kurdistan region said US mistakenly
seized five Iranian diplomats instead of commanders
of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the Kurdistani
city of Erbil three months ago
April 7, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --- American
forces who captured five Iranians in the northern
city of Erbil three months ago were really after
commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who were
visiting Kurdish officials, the Kurdish leader said
in remarks broadcast Saturday.
Massoud Barzani, president of the 15-year-old
Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, told Al-Arabiyah
television that the Iranian commanders first visited
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in the Kurdistani
city of Sulaimaniyah and then went to visit him.
Barzani did not say where he met the commanders,
although he was thought to have been in Erbil at the
time.
He also did not say how he knew U.S. forces were
trying to capture the commanders or where they were
when the Americans raided a house in Erbil on Jan.
11 and detained the five Iranians, who still are in
U.S. custody. Erbil is the capital of the Kurdistan
region. |
Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
"It (the house) was not a secret Iranian office. It
is impossible for us to accept that an Iranian
office in Erbil was doing things against coalition
forces or against us. That office was doing its work
in a normal way and had they been doing anything
hostile, we would have known that," Barzani said.
"They did not come to detain the people in that
office. There was an Iranian delegation, including
Revolutionary Guards commanders, and they came as
guests of the president. He was in Sulaimaniyah.
They came to Sulaimaniyah and then I received a call
from the president's office telling me that they
wanted to meet me as well."
U.S. Defense Department officials in Baghdad did not
immediately respond to telephone and e-mail requests
for comment.
Washington has said the five captured Iranians were
rounded up on suspicion they were providing aid to
Shiite militia fighters who are targeting U.S. and
Iraqi troops and civilians.
"They (the commanders) came here and they came
openly. Their meetings with the president and myself
were reported on television. The Americans came to
detain this delegation, not the people in the
office," he said. "They came to the wrong place at
the wrong time."
"The only place where there is no Iranian influence
is Erbil. I will never allow such influence in
Kurdistan, whether Iranian or otherwise," Barzani
added.
On Wednesday, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen.
William Caldwell said an International Committee of
the Red Cross delegation including one Iranian had
visited the captive Iranians.
But on Friday, the U.S. military issued a statement
clarifying that there were no Iranians in the ICRC
team that had visited the five Iranians. Lt. Col.
Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, issued the
clarifying statement in an e-mail statement to The
Associated Press.
"The ICRC committees that visited the five Iranians
detained in Erbil on two occasions did not contain
an Iranian national. One of the two committees
contained an individual who speaks Farsi and lived
in Iran, but he is a British citizen by birth,"
Garver said.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said the United
States was still considering an Iranian government
request to visit the
five.
AP
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