Iran Says Will Not Support U.S.-Installed Govt In Iraq

"Such a government is an imposed government," Kharazi

TEHRAN, March 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Iran will not support an Iraqi government installed by the United States but only one chosen democratically by the Iraqi people, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said Sunday, March 30.

"We will not support a government installed by the Americans in Iraq," Kharazi told a press conference in Iraq. "Such a government is an imposed government."

"We can only respect a government if it is established under the supervision of the United Nations and has been chosen by the vote of the Iraqis themselves," he added, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

"We welcome any government resulting from a popular vote, that will maintain good neighbor relations with Iraq and respect existing accords," he said.

Relations between Tehran and Baghdad, despite slight improvements prior to the outbreak of war, have remained largely cold, with continued bitterness on both sides carried over from their 1980-1988 war.

Though there is no lost love between Tehran and Baghdad, Iranian officials have also heaped criticism on Washington, saying it is pursuing Saddam for concealing weapons of mass destruction because it helped him obtain them in the first place.

Kharazi also rejected U.S. accusations that Iran was meddling in the war in neighboring Iraq, echoing a strong denial by government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh Saturday, March 29.

Charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Tehran was allowing hundreds of Iran-based fighters of Iraq's Shiite Muslim opposition to cross the border in defiance of U.S. calls for them to stay out of the conflict were without foundation, Kharazi said.

The Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) is "completely independent and has nothing to do with the Islamic republic," the foreign minister added.

"Our policy is not to get involved in this war," said Kharazi, who added that SAIRI's large armed wing, the Badr Brigade, does not want to go into action.

Rumsfeld had “warned on” Friday, March 28, that Washington would "hold the Iranian government responsible" for actions by the Badr Brigade, which is estimated by diplomatic sources here to number some 10,000 to 15,000 men.

Tehran-based SAIRI is the main Iraqi Shiite Muslim opposition group.

On northern Iraq, Kharazi urged Turkey not to intervene militarily, despite shared fears that the region's Kurdish minority will exploit the U.S.-led war to pursue greater autonomy.

"We understand and share Turkey's concerns but we do not approve of Turkish forces entering Iraq," Kharazi told a news conference here.

"We are obviously worried and we have told our Turkish friends not to dispatch their forces."

Both Iran and Turkey fear that the U.S.-led war will lead to Kurdish rebels winning control of Iraq's northern oil capital of Kirkuk, making them more self-sufficient economically and a potential beacon for unrest among their own much larger Kurdish minorities.

Those fears were likely confirmed by the advance Friday by Kurdish rebels to within 16 kilometers (10 miles) of the center of Kirkuk, reportedly with the help of U.S. special forces.

Turkey last week gave assurances that it would abide by repeated U.S. calls to stay out of the Iraq war, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made clear Saturday that it was ultimately a decision for Ankara alone. Kharazi called for "a halt to this war as quickly as possible."

On Friday, March 28, hundreds of Iranian demonstrators threw stones and broke windows of the British embassy during a protest against Britain's role in the U.S.-led war on Iraq, witnesses said.

Around 1,000 protestors gathered in front of the embassy after what was the biggest demonstration so far in Iran against the assault on neighboring Iraq.

They overturned an empty guard post at the entrance, burned British flags and said they would tear down the flag flying on the building, but they were kept away from the embassy by Iranian riot police.

The demonstrators were among tens of thousands who had marched at the call of the Islamic Republic's authorities after Friday prayers, where in one mosque they were fired up by senior cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, who called U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair "war criminals."

They converged on Revolution Square shouting "Death to America," "Death to Israel" and the less commonly heard slogan "Death to Britain."

Bush, Blair and Israel's Ariel Sharon were also vituperated, but also occasionally was Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, who fought a vicious and bloody war with Iran from 1980 to 1988.

"Saddam is a criminal and even up to this day our soldiers exposed to his chemical weapons are dying," said one of the demonstrators, who included many veterans of the war or relatives of the hundreds of thousands of martyrs who died in it.

Iran tends to blame Saddam for inviting the U.S. and British invasion of his country, but it is also on Bush's "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.

The Islamic Republic has professed neutrality in the current conflict, but Iranians are keeping a close eye on the war between their two greatest enemies.

Earlier in February, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami accused the U.S. of positioning itself as a violent Big Brother driven by "fanatic fundamentalism".

"It is unfortunate that the other superpower ... allows itself, self-righteously, to hector others from a position of the 'big brother' -- worse still as the self-appointed master of the world," Khatami said in an address to the NAM assembly.

"The problem, however, is not just a matter of satisfying an instinct for a sense of superiority; rather, as is currently the case, the very security of many countries in the world is seriously threatened."

Khatami also accused Washington of using force to steamroll international opponents.