Iran says ready to retaliate against any US strike

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iran has warned it will retaliate in the event of a US strike, during the highest level visit of an Iranian official to neighboring Iraq since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won power in Tehran last summer.

"In the event that America launches a strike from any place, Iran will retaliate by targeting that place," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told journalists in Baghdad after expressing his support for Iraq's new government.

He confirmed his country's decision not to hold direct talks with the United States over the situation in Iraq, while saying he thought "the risks of a confrontation are minimal."

"I don't think the United States is in a position to create a new crisis for US taxpayers," Mottaki said Friday.

US President George W. Bush has refused to rule out a military strike against Iran if negotiations fail to calm suspicions it is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

Washington believes Iran is using its civil nuclear energy program as a cover to produce nuclear weapons and has demanded Iran halt uranium enrichment activity.

Mottaki denounced what he described as a double standard in international nuclear policy.

"Certain countries say that they have the right to possess nuclear weapons, while denying others the right to civil nuclear power.

"The solution to the Iran nuclear issue will come through cooperation or confrontation," Mottaki said.

"For our part, we prefer diplomatic means. (But) we are ready for any eventualities and we have told that to the Americans."

The Iranian minister earlier said his country supported Iraq's efforts to rebuild itself.

"Iran will support Iraq's reconstruction until the Iraqi people are able to handle their own fate," Mottaki said.

"Iran considers Iraq a brotherly neighbor and it will work to contribute to the restoration of security and stability in Iraq," he added.

Mottaki's visit comes amid swirling British and US accusations that Iran is fomenting and supporting recent violence in the southern Shiite city of Basra.

Mottaki declined to answer the allegations when asked by a journalist to respond to them.

Iraq's foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said the issue had been raised during a "very open discussion" with Mottaki at a press conference.

"We did raise all the concerns," Zebari said adding that security protocols between the two countries were in place.

"We want to activate those mechanisms to overcome any interference or infringement, let's say of our sovereignty."

"We expect more constructive cooperation with the Iraqi government to assist and help," Zebari said. "This new Iraqi government is a friendly government to Iran."

The last such high level visitor from Tehran was former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi who visited Baghdad in May 2005.

Relations between Iran and Iraq, which fought a bloody war from 1980-1988, have improved dramatically since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the coming to power of Iraq's long disenfranchised Shiite majority -- many of whose leaders once sought refuge in Iran.

"Iraq will never again be a threat to Iran," Zebari said, while asking that his neighbors not take advantage of Baghdad's current difficulties by interfering in its affairs.

Without naming names, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accused institutions and charitable organizations in neighboring countries of funding armed groups in Iraq in an interview with Dubai-based TV news channel Al-Arabiya on Thursday.

Maliki said it was the neighbors' obligation to control the activities of these organizations if they want normal relations with Iraq.

Meanwhile, violence raged on in Iraq, killing 13 people in a series of attacks around the country including eight in a car bombing near one of Baghdad's main bus stations, an official at the defense ministry said.

The bomb, which also wounded 31 people, went off in a crowded market place near the Al-Nahda bus station in the city center.

And in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Basra, a Sunni Imam and a bodyguard were killed by gunmen in a drive-by shooting as they traveled to their mosque, police said.

In a particularly grisly discovery in Muqdadiyah, north of the restive city of Baquba, the authorities found five decapitated bodies of Shiites who had been kidnapped over the past few days, a security source said.

Five corpses were also found in Baquba, while police found an arms cache with ten cars packed with explosives in another location north of the city, the source said.

Source

About headlines and content that has changed after it was added to this site - see disclaimer here

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.