“There are international conventions and regulations regarding this (helping people in distress) and the Islamic Republic of Iran feels obliged to follow them,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
Asefi was reacting to US reports that Tehran had indicated it would assist US military personnel in the event they were in distress in Iran.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Shanghai the United States was unlikely to need assistance offered by Iran to US forces in Afghanistan.
He told reporters on board his plane en route from India that he did not believe the assistance would be necessary given the fact that most of Afghanistan’s other neighbours — Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — had offered similar help.
“I don’t think that will become necessary because I can’t envision us needing it in that part of the theater, but that was an interesting statement on their part,” Powell said of the offer relayed through the Swiss.
The New York Times has reported that Iran showed willingness to help in a message sent on Oct 8, in response to a message from the Bush administration the day before.
Iran and the United States usually communicate with each other through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which represents US interests there in the absence of diplomatic relations.
In Washington a State Department official said on Tuesday that the Iranian offer meant a fairly low level of cooperation with Washington in its retaliatory strikes on Afghanistan after last month’s attacks on the United States. “They would do the same in the case of a shipwreck,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in remarks published on Wednesday that the United States was missing a golden opportunity to improve ties with Tehran and use Iranian knowhow to resolve its problems with Iran.
But Kharrazi told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that it was up to Washington to make the first move and change its policies towards Iran.
Iran has criticized the US bombing of Afghanistan and has not allowed US planes to use its airspace. Tehran has called for any international action against terrorism to be led by the United Nations.
Iranian assistance could arise if, for example, a US pilot in trouble had to make an emergency landing and did not want to land in territory controlled by the Taliban.
IRAN REJECTS US-PAKISTAN SOLUTIONS: Iran, hostile to the US-led attacks against Afghanistan as well as the Taliban, refuses to accept any US-Pakistan “post-Taliban” solutions and talks from which it has been excluded.
Tehran, whose ties with Washington were severed after the 1979 revolution, has implicitly criticized the US negotiations with Western and regional countries and appears particularly vexed by the regional tour of US Secretary of States Colin Powell to Pakistan and India.
“The legal government” of ousted Afghan president Burhannudin Rabbani, which is supported by Iran and linked to the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance, “should play a fundamental role in the future government” in Kabul, Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said during talks with his French counterpart Hubert Vedrine on Tuesday.
“The future government must be representative of all parties,” Kharazi stressed, referring to a possible return of former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah which Washington favours, according to Tehran.
Likewise, the reformist English-language Iran News in a commentary said “one possible reason for Powell’s visit could be to pave the way for the return of the former Afghan monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shah, to his homeland.”
“The US should be careful not to again be deceived by the Pakistanis on the question of Afghanistan, and it is hoped that Mr. Powell is not swayed by the Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI),” the daily which supports moderate President Mohammad Khatami said.
“The ISI is doing its utmost to disguise and conceal its atrocious past policies in Afghanistan and preserve and protect its future interests in that beleaguered and long-suffering country by portraying the Northern Alliance as allied and associated to Russia and India, thereby eliminating or reducing its presence in any future Afghan government,” it said.
But it also rejects joining hands with the United States in any attacks against a fellow Muslim nation.
However, the centrist Entekhab daily in a commentary outpointed that Tehran would have to be more innovative if it wants to have a say in the crisis.
“Iran must accept this important reality that our wants and desires are not to be fully realised in Afghanistan. Therefore, in addition to condemning the US attacks on Afghanistan, it must affect the future government in Afghanistan by being creative in its actions and by making the best choice,” the paper said.—Reuters