May 9, 2007
The five Iranian officials whose abduction in an a
US helicopter raid in January led to a crisis in
relations between the US and Iran could be released
in June according to the Iraqi foreign minister.
In an interview in Baghdad, Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's
foreign minister, said that legally the US can only
hold the Iranians for six months. It must then
charge them, hand them over to Iraq or release them.
The Iranians were
captured when the US launched a surprise raid on
a long-established Iranian office in Erbil, the
Kurdistan capital in (northern Iraq), on 11 January.
Mr Zebari confirmed that the real targets were two
senior Iranian security officials, the deputy head
of Iran's National Security Council and General
Minojahar Farouzanda, the head of intelligence of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Both men were on an
official visit to Kurdistan (northern Iraq) at the
time of the US attack during which they had seen
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Kurdistan
President Massoud Barzani. Misled by the presence of
their official car at the liaison office in Erbil -
although they were in Mr Barzani's headquarters at
Salahudin - US forces tried and failed to seize
them. |
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari |
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Mr Zebari said there was "a possibility they will be
released". This is because under an agreement
governing such detentions the US "can detain them
for 90 days and this can be renewed once. This is
the military rule for holding such people: charge
them, hand them over to the Iraqi authorities or
release them. The time for their detention will
expire in June when a decision will have to be
made."
The Erbil raid came after George Bush made a speech
on 10 January, identifying Iran and Syria as prime
enemies of the US in Iraq. Mr Zebari has been
outspoken in demanding their release, He said that
since the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting last week the
Iranian prisoners have been allowed to receive
family visits.
Mr Zebari, Foreign Minister of Iraq since 2004, is
one of the few successful and internationally highly
regarded ministers in post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi
government. He said that both the US and Iran had to
realise that the other has a stake in what is
happening in Iraq. "No matter how dismissive the
Iranians are about not talking to the Americans the
Americans are players here. And even if the
Americans view the Iranians negatively they are
here; they are players whether we want it or not."
Mr Zebari is triumphant over the success of the
summit on Iraq held in Sharm el-Shaikh last week,
seeing it as an early step in defusing confrontation
between Tehran and Washington. He pointed out that,
unlike most of Iraq's Arab neighbours, Iran supports
the present government of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"Iran doesn't want to bring down this government,"
he says. "It's friendly, its Shia-led; they know
everybody in it. They could not find a better
government in a lottery. It came to power
legitimately through the popular will of the
people." Arab countries dislike the government
because it is essentially a Shia-Kurd coalition and
is democratically elected. Saudi Arabia recently
spoke of the "illegal occupation". Iraq is also
opposed to the US negotiating unilaterally with
Syria and Iran, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton
report, without the Iraqi government being part of
the process and the discussions being focussed on
Iraq.
Mr Zebari is convinced that a US withdrawal at this
stage would lead to the disintegration of Iraq, an
explosive expansion of militias as each community
sought to defend itself and a triumph for al-Qa'ida.
He does not sound impressed by the "surge" and
attempts to regain control of Baghdad, saying: "It
has made improvements but not great improvements."
He wants the Iraqi government to push ahead with
reconciliation with Sunni insurgents, action against
the militias, modification of the constitution and
de-Baathification. This could be a case of showing
willing rather than expecting results. He himself
points out that the key leaders of insurgent groups,
that operate under a bewildering series of names,
are mostly former officers in Hussein's Special
Republican Guards and are likely to prove
irreconcilable.
independent co.uk
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