NAJI SABRI LEFT TEHRAN WITH EMPTY HANDS
TEHRAN 30 Sept. (IPS) Iraqi Foreign Affairs Minister Naji Sabri, who had come to Tehran on Saturday looking for Iranian support in case the United States attack Baghdad, left Monday with empty hands, leaving his Iranian counterpart facing a storm of protest over the untimely visit.
"If Iraqi Foreign Minister came to Tehran looking for a clear message of support against possible U.S. attacks from former foe Iran, he went away empty-handed", one Iranian journalist who covered the visit told Iran Press Service.
On leaving Tehran, Mr. Sabri told reporters he had delivered a message of reconciliation from Mr Saddam Hoseyn to President Mohammad Khatami and assured that Iraq wanted to remove problems and end the state of "no war no peace" that has existed between the two neighbours since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.
Informed sources speculated that the unpredictable Iraqi dictator had offered to end his support for the Mojajedeen Khal Organisation, the Iranian group that is based in Baghdad and is armed and financed by Mr. Hoseyn, in exchange for Iran withdrawing its backing for Kurdish and Shi’a factions that fight his regime.
Led by the staunchly anti-American Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the conservatives who rule Iran, opposes any American military attack on Baghdad with the stated aim of removing Mr. Hoseyn, stopping short of suggesting siding with the Iraqi strongman, but they had to step-back in face of mounting pressure from the Iranian public opinion that favour his fall.
Not only the Iranian pro-reform newspapers, lawmakers and scholars criticised the government for the visit, saying Iraq was a "loser" and Saddam could not be trusted, but also expressed anger with the embattled President for having received Mr. Sabri.
"This visit, while serving Mr. Hoseyn’s interests, brings nothing for Iran but tying the destiny of our nation with a regime that is doomed", observed Dr. Mohammad Soltanifar, the Editor of the English-language "Iran News", that is published by the pro-government official news agency IRNA.
In his view, official’s explanations like "talking on Iranian war claims from Iraq" or removing obstacles for the visit by Iranian pilgrims to Sh’ite sacred places in Iraq etc. are not convincing, especially if one takes into account that the visit coincided with the commemoration of the bloody war Mr. Hoseyn imposed on Iran 24 years ago.
''America is going to reach its aims in Iraq, either through an attack or by other means'', said the pro-reform "Mardomsalari" (Democracy) newspaper in an editorial, adding: ''But we should not become the next American target; Iran should not repeat the mistakes of Afghanistan. If we help fight terrorism, we should be rewarded".
''The message the world gets from this visit (of Sabri) is that Iran is on the side of Iraq, which in reality it is not true'', pointed out Mr. Noureddin Pirmoazen, a reformist deputy from the northwestern Province of Ardebil. ''The world knows that Saddam's regime's time is over. If there is a discussion, it is about how it should be toppled'', he added.
''Iran has chosen a policy of active neutrality regarding the Iraq crisis. Consulting on the issue with all possible sides is the best way to prevent another war in the region'', the State-run Radio Tehran quoted Foreign Affaires Ministry’s spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying on Monday, explaining the unexplainable.
"This word of "active" both the reformists and the conservatives place in front of other words is a fashionable plague with Iranian officials who use this word to complicate simple things", noted Mr. Ahmad Zeydabadi, an independent journalist close to the banned Nationalist-religious movement.
Mr. Kamal Kharrazi, the Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister was quoted to have told Mr. Naji that Iran could offer "good neighbourly relations" if Iraq settled unresolved issues "as soon as possible". He referred to the continued detention of prisoners of war, as well as trade and pilgrimage to Shia Muslim shrines in Iraq.
Though nothing has been officially reported from either side about the contents of Mr. Hoseyn’s message for his Iranian counterpart nor about the talks Mr. Naji held with Iranian officials, including President Khatami, but informed sources told Iran press Service that Tehran reiterated that Iraq would have to co-operate fully with UN weapons inspectors to avert war.
"Now it is up to Iraq to prevent rising tension and crisis in the region through necessary co-operation with the UN", Mr. Kharrazi told his Iraqi guest. ENDS SABRI LEFT EMPTY HANDS 30902