Iraq, Iran protest US arrest of Iranian officials
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
AFP
BAGHDAD • The Iraqi government protested yesterday after US forces arrested a number of Iranian officials in Baghdad, allegedly because they were planning to incite attacks in the already war-torn country.
“Two people who were invited by the president to Iraq have now been apprehended by the Americans, and the president is unhappy with the arrests,” Hiwa Osman, President Jalal Talabani's media adviser, said.
“The invitation was within the framework of an agreement between Iran and Iraq to improve the security situation,” he added.
It was not clear how many Iranian officials are still in US custody.
Osman confirmed two had been arrested, but the New York Times reported four were still being held even after two with diplomatic status had been released.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said: “A few days ago we became aware that US forces, contrary to international laws, had arrested Iranian diplomats who were invited by the Iraqi government.
“This action is not compatible with international law and it will have unpleasant consequences,” he warned, according to the Mehr news agency.
Separately, leading Iraqi lawmaker and imam, Sheikh Jalal Eddin Al Saghir of the Baratha mosque, said that two Iranian diplomats had been seized by US forces in Baghdad last Thursday, but were later released.
“Two diplomats from the Iranian embassy came to see me at the mosque to offer condolences on the death of my mother,” he said.
“After they left the mosque and were travelling back to the embassy they were arrested by the Americans, with two of their guards. I don't know why. I later heard that they'd been released,” he said.
Confirmation of arrests came after the New York Times, citing senior US officials, reported that several Iranians were detained by US forces in Iraq last week on suspicion of planning attacks on Iraqi troops.
“We continue to work with the government of Iraq on the status of the detainees,” Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, told the New York Times, according to its report.
Iraq's national security adviser Mowaffaq Al Rubaie declined a request for comment on the arrests, which the Times reported had put strain on the relationship between the Iraqi government and its American allies.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Baghdad also declined to comment.
US commanders in Iraq regularly accuse Iran of fomenting unrest in its troubled neighbour, but the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government has insisted on pursuing a policy of closer security ties with Tehran.
According to White House officials cited in the Times report, the Iranians include two “senior military officials” with links to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit which trains Lebanon's Shi’ite Hezbollah guerrilla movement.
If US authorities produce evidence against the detainees it could be the first proof of their longstanding charge that Iranian agents are stirring violence in Iraq by arming and training illegal militias.
The arrests come amid mounting diplomatic tension between Iran, the United States and the international community, after the UN Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Iran's nuclear programme.
In response to the vote, Iran defiantly vowed to start work immediately on drastically expanding its capacity to enrich uranium.
Washington accuses Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, a charge vehemently denied by the oil-rich Islamic republic, which says it only wants to provide atomic energy to a growing population.
Several of the Shi’ite parties that have risen to power in Iraq since the downfall of former dictator Saddam Hussein have ties to Iran.
Shiite cleric Abdel Aziz Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) was founded by Tehran to mobilise Iraqi exiles against their own government during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Today, the movement is an important part of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki's ruling coalition.
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