TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s government said Saturday it is neither seeking “friction” with Washington over Iraq’s future government nor pushing for a religious administration in Baghdad.
However, Hasan Rowhani, secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, said Iran does not support the presence of U.S. and British troops in Iraq or any attempt to install a “puppet regime” in Baghdad.
“Tehran does not want any friction with Washington over issues concerning Iraq,” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Rowhani as saying during talks with India’s visiting national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi also said Iran “has not asked the Iraqi people to set up an Iranian-style government” in Baghdad, the state news agency reported.
Kharrazi was referring to U.S. charges that Shiite Muslim-controlled Iran was sending operatives into neighboring Iraq to promote an Iranian-style theocracy among that country’s predominantly Shiite population.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week ruled out a theocracy for Iraq.
“If you’re suggesting how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn’t going to happen,” he told The Associated Press.
With Shiite Muslims forming over 60 percent of Iraq’s population, a free vote might produce an Islamic-oriented government with close ties to the historically anti-American Shiite clerics who have governed Iran since the 1979 revolution.
America accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs after tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites staged anti-U.S. demonstrations during a religious pilgrimage in the holy city of Karbala.
The American administrator in Iraq, retired Gen. Jay Garner, said Thursday he thought Tehran influenced the protests.
Kharrazi said: “If you say Iran influences the Iraqis’ votes, it is something insulting to the great nation of Iraq. They are wise enough to distinguish their own interest. It is not Iran’s business.” He said Iraqis were merely demonstrating a “national resolve to form a national government.”
Kharrazi said the United States – which severed ties with Iran following the 1979 embassy hostage crisis in Tehran – was wrong for trying to impose a government of its liking in Baghdad.
“Although the United States toppled a tyrant regime, it needs the vote of the people to help establish an all-Iraqi government,” he said.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected resuming ties with Washington, saying such talk was tantamount to “treason and stupidity.” Iranian reformists, who control the country’s popularly elected legislature, want the issue decided by referendum.
AP-ES-04-26-03 1448EDT
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