IRAQI OPPOSITION LEADERS WARNED IRAN OVER "ACTIVE NEUTRALITY"
By an IPS Correspondent
TEHRAN 10 Dec. (IPS)
On the eve of the largest ever meeting of Iraqi groups, organisations and personalities opposed to Saddam Hoseyn, scheduled to gather in London on Friday, the Iranian capital was the theatre for rehearsal of the way the opponents of the Iraqi dictator intends to topple him and govern Baghdad afterward.Leaders of the Democratic Party of (Iraqi) Kurdistan (DPK), the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) and Iraqi National Congress (INC), respectively Mr. Mas’ood barzani, Ayatollah Baqer Hakim and Ahmad Chalabi conferred in Tehran in the past 24 hours, discussing the future of their country.
They also met senior Iranian officials, in an effort to encourage the Islamic Republic to actively support plans aimed at replacing the present Iraqi dictatorship with a democratic regime.
Because of the leadership of the United States in the possible attack on neighbouring Iraq, the staunchly anti-American leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i has decided to keep Iran out of the war, while offering American forces basic assistance, like rescuing American pilots that might be forced to crash-land in the Iranian territory of flaying over Iranian airspace.
In meeting with Mr. Barzani on Monday evening, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Islamic Republic’s number two official warned him against American "plans" for Iraq, saying Washington wanted to replace Mr. Hoseyn by "another dictator".
"The United States has no intention of installing a free and independent regime in Iraq", Rafsanjani was quoted by the independent Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) as having told the visiting Iraqi Kurds leader.
"They want to install another dictator to guarantee their interests and those of the Zionists (Israel)", Rafsanjani further said, adding that "everyone must watch out not to let the United States install another puppet dictator and ignore the interests of the Iraqi people."
But a spokesman for Mr. Barzani said his visit to Iran, his first for eight years, was part of a drive to ease neighbouring countries' concerns that the Iraqi Kurds aimed to set up a separate state if Saddam were overthrown.
"In the meetings with Iranian officials, the two sides commented on the situation in Iraq after the fall of Saddam and discussed ways and means to establish and promote ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran", the DPK’s spokesman, Mr. Ebrahim Pirut, told the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Tehran remains strongly opposed to Saddam after its 1980-88 war with Iraq, but is reluctant to see a pro-Western government in Baghdad completing its encirclement by countries friendly to its arch enemy Washington following last year's Afghan war, analysts commented.
In a recent visit to Kuwait, where he met Mr. Jalal Talebani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a rival of DPK, Ayatollah Hakim had criticised the Iranian so-called "active neutrality" in a new war against Iraq and had also complained that Tehran might not allow the thousands of Iraqi armed men who are stationed in south-western parts of Iran close to the Iraqi borders and controlled by the SAIRI to join the American-led battle against Mr. Hoseyn.
Iranian political analysts said the decision to keep Iran neutral in the forthcoming anti-Saddam war was "wrong and against Iranian national interests".
"If we do so, we are going to repeat the same mistakes we did in Afghanistan", said mr. Hooshang Tale’, a journalist in Tehran, adding: "This is a golden opportunity for us to bring Saddam to a war crimes tribunal and also get our war damages claims, estimated at hundreds of billions of Dollars", said Mr. Hooshang Tale’, a journalist in Tehran.
Mr. Chalabi, who had arrived in Tehran unexpectedly, met both the Iran-based Ayatollah Hakim and Mr. Barzani, who came to Tehran on the official invitation of Iranian government.
The trio represents Iraqi largest and strongest forces opposed to president Hoseyn, as between them, they can mobilise millions of Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims who form the majority of the Iraq’s 20 millions population, as well as most of the Kurds.
"This is a very important and positive meeting, as Iran needs Iraq and vice et versa. We have to end with out past differences, which were due to Saddam’s expansionist and hegemonistic policies. Now it is time we join our forces together and co-operate closely for a better, safer and more prosper Middle East", Mr. Shawkat, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Movement told Iran Press Service, commenting on the Tehran meetings.
Political analysts said the meetings in Tehran appeared to be aimed at salvaging the London gathering, -- expected to be attended by some 200 Iraqi delegates from six opposition groups and 100 foreign observers -- and retaining credibility in the eyes of Washington in order to lay claim to a central role in Iraq after a possible U.S.-UK-led invasion of the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation.
Barzani and Hakim are wary of Chalabi, a former banker with links to some of the hawks within the U.S. Administration, who see him as an Iraqi Hamed Karzai, the US and UN-installed Afghan interim Prime Minister-President.
But most Iraqi experts say contrary to Hakim, Barzani and Talebani, not only Chalabi has no support inside Iraq, but lacks popularity among other Iraqi opposition forces.
The leader of the Constitutional Monarchy Movement, Sharif Ali bin al-Hoseyn, said that the twice-delayed conference was the "beginning of a process of healing and laying out a road map for Iraq's future."
"The conference would not be establishing a government-in-exile", he told a press conference in London, referring to plans attributed to Mr. Chalabi for the creation of such a government, a project rejected by the leaders of major Iraqi opposition organisations, like the Kurds and the Shi’ites.
Sharif, the pretender to the Iraqi throne, is one of six members of a preparatory committee for the London conference. Other groups include the Iraqi National Congress, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Iraqi National Accord, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Front of Kurdistan. ENDS IRAQI OPPOSITION MEETS IN TEHRAN 101202