WASHINGTON, 25 April 2003 — The United States has detained Tareq Aziz, the deputy prime minister in Saddam Hussein’s toppled Iraqi regime, a senior US defense official said yesterday. “We believe we have Tareq Aziz in our possession,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There were no immediate details on how Aziz was taken by US forces.

ABC television said Aziz, the longtime international spokesman for Saddam, had given himself up.

Aziz was number 43 on the list of 55 most wanted members of the Saddam regime issued by the United States. He was the most senior Christian member of the Iraqi administration. Four other members of Saddam’s old guard were detained on Wednesday.

In Baghdad, US administrator for Iraq Jay Garner said the formation of a new Iraqi government will start next week.

Iraq’s neighbor Iran, meanwhile, angrily rejected US allegations of interference in Iraq, warning its troops not to cross into Iran and voicing alarm over a deal between the US military and the Iraq-based People’s Mujahedeen opposition group.

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in Tehran that US forces patrolling the Iran-Iraq border — in an operation that Washington asserts is aimed at preventing Iranian infiltration — should beware of the “red line” represented by the border.

“There is no Iranian interference in Iraq’s internal affairs,” Kharrazi asserted during a joint press conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Saying US forces on the border were “not a new phenomenon” since the beginning of the war on Iraq, Kharrazi added: “It is clear that we are going to defend our frontiers; the red line passes along the line of our borders.”

The White House said Wednesday it had warned Iran against “any outside interference” in Iraq and begun military patrols near the border, amid concerns that Tehran may have sent agents across to push its brand of government.

Kharrazi also dismissed allegations of Iranian use of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Iran-based Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) — Iraq’s main Shiite opposition group.

“The Badr Brigade is an Iraqi movement and does not include any Iranian. Every Iraqi has the right to be in Iraq and play a role in determining the future regime of Iraq,” he asserted.

The foreign minister also reflected widespread official alarm here over the contents of a cease-fire deal between Washington and the Iraq-based People’s Mujahedeen guerrillas — the main armed Iranian opposition group that has been using Iraqi soil to battle Tehran’s regime for well over a decade.

The US military has confirmed it had reached a cease-fire agreement that, a spokesman for the Mujahedeen told AFP, included allowing the militia to keep its arms, stay in Iraq and continue to wage its armed struggle.

“If this news that they can stay there and keep their arms is correct, this will expose the American plans for the region and it would be contrary to international law,” Kharrazi said.

Officials at the US Central Command war headquarters in Qatar have repeatedly refused to comment on the deal with the Mujahedeen.