TEHRAN, 17 April 2003 — Iran will not acknowledge a non-Iraqi administration in Iraq, President Muhammad Khatami said yesterday after the weekly Cabinet session. The president rejected the idea of a US-led postwar system, saying he hoped the United States would leave Iraq as soon as possible to allow the Iraqis decide about their own political fate under the United Nations.
He also rejected the idea of holding a referendum on ties with the United States. “Holding a referendum on foreign policy issues has no meaning as the expedience of a country must be first evaluated and then decided upon,” Khatami told reporters. Former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani had proposed last week a referendum on future ties with the US after approval by the Parliament and then by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on state affairs.
Two close associates of the head of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmad Chalabi, proclaimed themselves leaders of the interim local government in Baghdad yesterday. Muhammad Mohsen Zubeidi was “elected” head of the provisional administration by an assembly of officials and religious leaders with the consent of US-led coalition forces, INC “General” Jaudat Obeidi told a news conference.
Obeidi said he had been selected mayor of Baghdad. “Our first duty will consist of forming committees to run the city” which has been left devastated by three weeks of war and a week of looting, Obeidi said. Obeidi, who said he had spent years in exile in the US state of Oregon, said broadcasts by Radio Baghdad were to resume Wednesday evening, which would permit the population to be informed of the new leadership and “give legitimacy” to the new administration.
He said the choice of two leaders for the city of Baghdad would be extended to the rest of Iraq “under the federal model” of the United States. “I want to serve the people and work to reestablish security,” he said.
Meanwhile, a top Iraqi Shiite opposition leader ended 23 years in exile in Iran and returned home yesterday to a rapturous welcome, his son said. Abdelaziz Hakim, deputy head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), arrived in the southern Iraqi city of Kut. He was apparently the first Iranian-backed Shiite opposition leader to return to Iraq since US-led forces toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last week.
“Abdelaziz Hakim was given a warm welcome by thousands of people in Al-Kut upon his arrival early yesterday,” his son, Mohsen Hakim, told Reuters. Iranian television showed Abdelaziz Hakim being welcomed by supporters in the city, where the majority of the population is Shiite.
Shiites make up two-thirds of Iraq’s 26 million people, who include Sunni Muslims, Kurds and Christians. Mohsen Hakim said his father’s role would be “to restore peace and security”.
He did not elaborate. The Tehran-based SCIRI boycotted a meeting of Iraqi religious and political leaders that was held on Tuesday near the Iraqi city of Nassiriyah to map out the postwar political future of the country. “The meeting was not successful because it did not represent all the Iraqi groups,” Mohsen said.
