TEHRAN, 9 August 2004 — A war of words between Iran and Iraq intensified yesterday, with the Foreign Ministry in Tehran now saying it was not prepared to discuss serious issues with Baghdad’s interim authorities.
In the latest blow to relations, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday it was summoning Iraq’s top diplomat here over claims that four Iranian spies have been arrested in Baghdad.
“We are going to summon the Iraqi charge d’affaires to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, and we are going to ask him to give us proof,” spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
“He should tell us whom they have arrested and if they have proof to give us,” he added, saying Iraqi officials should also “stop creating a bad atmosphere” between Iran and Iraq. On Saturday a spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry said four Iranian intelligence officers had been arrested by Iraqi authorities on suspicion of spying and carrying out acts of sabotage in the country.
Asefi also snubbed a call from Iraq’s interim Defense Minister Hazem Al-Shaalan, who has been widely lambasted in the Iranian press, that Tehran immediately return Iraqi planes sent to Iran before or during the 1991 Gulf War.
“We will discuss these (issues) with the coming elected government officials, and not with the interim government,” Asefi said in what amounted to a major snub.
Iran has yet to formally recognize the Iraqi interim government, which has been described by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “lackeys” of the Americans.
Shaalan said in an interview with the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Anbaa that Iran should send back 130 planes “now”. Tehran has insisted that it was holding only 22 Iraqi planes which Saddam Hussein’s regime sent to Iran to avoid attacks by US-led forces liberating Kuwait and that it was ready to return them if asked by the United Nations.
Tensions between Iraq and Iran have mounted in recent weeks, after Shaalan told The Washington Post he had seen “clear interference in Iraqi issues by Iran” and accused Tehran of taking over some Iraqi border posts and sending spies and saboteurs into Iraq. He also alleged that Tehran was working “to kill democracy” in his country. But Asefi said Iran wanted to hear from Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi “that what the Iraqi defense minister said has been manipulated and it was not like that.”
“We are hopeful that in the future we will not witness such irresponsible comments. The Iraqis should be vigilant. Iraq should not be the place for crisis building,” Asefi said.
“We have announced one too many times that we are not interfering in Iraq. We are looking forward to the security and stability of Iraq,” he added. Ties have also been strained over Saddam’s trial, with Iran complaining that his use of chemical weapons against the Islamic republic during their 1980-88 war was left off the charge sheet.
