BAGHDAD, Sept 22: Iran’s ambassador to Iraq accused the United States on Saturday of going against the wishes of Baghdad in seizing a national from a northern hotel and of riding roughshod over Iraqi sovereignty.
In an interview with AFP, ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi also roundly rejected US accusations that Iran was undermining its neighbour’s security insisting that, compared with Iraq’s borders with US allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the frontier with Iran was a model of security.
“The Iraqi government must secure the release of the Iranian,” Kazemi Qomi said when asked about the fate of the national, identified only as Mr Farhadi, who was detained in a hotel in the city of Sulaimaniyah in the northern Kurdish region on Thursday.
The US military said their detainee was suspected of being an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
But Iran, backed by the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, insists he was part of a visiting business delegation.
“This kind of action violates the sovereignty of Iraq,” the ambassador said. “This is an example of American mistakes in Iraq.” Kazemi Qomi said the authorities in Baghdad also accepted that the detained Iranian was a bona fide official visiting Sulaimaniyah at the invitation of the regional authorities.
“The government of Iraq told them it was against the interests of Iraq and the neighbours of Iraq.” The ambassador said the Iraqi government simply did not believe US accusations that Iran was fomenting unrest.
“How many Iranians accused of terrorism are in the prisons?” he asked, suggesting that no nationals had been convicted of involvement in the violence wracking Iraq.
“And how many are from countries considered friendly by the United States?” he added, in allusion to US regional allies Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Both US and Iraqi figures show that the majority of foreign fighters in Iraq come from those countries, along with Iran’s regional ally Syria.
The US military is continuing to hold five Iranians it detained in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil in January on suspicion of aiding insurgents.
But the five have never been charged and Iran insists they are diplomats.
Kazemi Qomi brushed aside US accusations that his government was seeking to destabilise Iraq, insisting the border with Iran was Iraq’s ‘safest’.
“Iraq is an occupied country and the occupation brought terrorism into Iraq. America opened the borders and gave an opportunity to terrorists to enter Iraq and to criminals of the past regime to return,” he said.
The envoy accused the US military of ignoring the wishes of the Shia-led government in Baghdad in working with two Sunni Arab insurgent groups – the Islamic Army and the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.
“This has been done against the will of the Iraqi government,” he said.
US commanders have been cooperating with the two insurgent groups in their common battle against militants loyal to Al-Qaeda, particularly in Diyala province north and northeast of Baghdad.—AFP