May 27, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24,1424

PARIS, May 26: Iran’s foreign minister Kamal Kharazi has said during a visit to Paris that he expected Iraq’s Shias to “play an important role in Iraq,” and that “if the Americans don’t restore power rapidly to the Iraqis, they will have problems, although I fear that they’ll make use of the problems in question to prolong their presence in Iraq.”

With regard to regional stability and Iran’s purported support of Hezbollah, Mr Kharazi admitted that Tehran did provide support to the Hezbollah, “but only politically, not militarily, because the Iranian government defends the values in which the Iranian people believe. We are not at all adventurers and defend regional stability, which for us is all-important.”

And, as far as he’s concerned, “on this we have an entirely different point of view from the United States. For if there is one country which is at the origin of our regional instability, it’s definitely Israel that’s responsible for the instability, certainly not the Hezbollah. It’s unfortunate that Europe does not yet have the means to place pressure on Israel in this regard.”