 |
|
If
the deal with People's Mujahedeen "is correct, this will
expose the Americans' plans for the region and it would be
contrary to international law," Kharazi said
|
TEHRAN,
April 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Iran hit out at the
United States Thursday, April 24, rejecting its allegations of
interference in Iraq, warning U.S. troops not to cross into Iranian
borders and voicing alarm over a deal between the U.S. military and
the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen opposition group.
During
a joint press conference with his French counterpart Domnique de
Villepin, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said U.S. forces
patrolling the Iran-Iraq border -- in an operation that Washington
asserts is aimed at preventing Iranian infiltration -- should beware
of the "red line" represented by the border.
"There
is no Iranian interference in Iraq's internal affairs," Agence
France-Presse (AFP) quoted him as telling reporters.
"It
is clear that we are going to defend our frontiers; the red line
passes along the line of our borders," he said, adding that U.S.
forces on the border were "not a new phenomenon" since the
beginning of the war on Iraq.
Kharazi
also dismissed allegations of Iranian use of the Badr Brigade, the
armed wing of the Iran-based Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution
in Iraq (SAIRI) -- Iraq's main Shiite opposition group.
"The
Badr Brigade is an Iraqi movement and does not include any Iranian.
Every Iraqi has the right to be in Iraq and play a role in determining
the future regime of Iraq," he asserted.
The
White House said Wednesday it had warned Iran
against "any outside interference" in Iraq and begun
military patrols near the border, amid concerns that Tehran may have
sent agents across to push its brand of Islamic government.
Alarmed
The
Iranian foreign minister also reflected widespread official alarm over
the contents of a ceasefire deal signed between Washington and the
Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen group -- the main armed Iranian
opposition group that has been using Iraqi soil to battle Tehran's
regime for well over a decade.
"If
this news that they can stay there and keep their arms is correct,
this will expose the Americans' plans for the region and it would be
contrary to international law. The United States should be responsible
for this," Kharazi said.
Iran's
powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also voiced his
concern in talks with de Villepin, accusing Washington of "double
standards" in its war on terrorism while slamming the U.S.
"occupation" of Iraq.
"On
the one hand the United States uses violence against some groups, and
then they negotiate with the terrorists in the People's Mujahedeen and
make a deal with them so they can stay in Iraq," state radio
quoted Rafsanjani as saying.
The
U.S. military has confirmed it had reached a ceasefire agreement with
the Mujahedeen, which a spokesman for the group told AFP at a military
base in Iraq included allowing the militia to keep its arms, stay in
Iraq and continue to wage its armed struggle.
The
deal has been seen as an early sign that Washington may be looking to
recast the group as "freedom fighters", even though some of
its camps were targeted by
U.S.-British warplanes during the war against Iraq.
The
United States, like the European Union, had previously classed the
People's Mujahedeen as a "terrorist organization".
Earlier
this week, the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards demanded
Washington extradite People's Mujahedeen members to show it is sincere
in combating terrorism, but also gave an ominous warning that Iran
would consider the United States responsible for any Mujahedeen
attack.
The
movement was given sanctuary by ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
in 1986 after being driven out of Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic
revolution, and has represented a major security headache for Iran.
