Iran ready to work with US on Iraq

Roula Khalaf and Najmeh Bozorgmehr
Financial Times
Monday October 01, 2007

Iran is ready to help the US stabilise Iraq if Washington presents a timetable for a withdrawal of its troops, Tehran’s top security official said on Sunday.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, which answers to Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, rejected Washington’s accusations that Tehran is providing weapons to Iraqi militias, insisting the trouble with Iraq was that the US administration was pursuing a “dead-end strategy”.

Mr Larijani maintained it was time world powers realised Iran’s nuclear progress could not be reversed and that they should enter into negotiations with Tehran without preconditions.

Pledging to continue co­operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, he made clear, however, that Iran would not suspend its ­uranium enrichment programme – a key Security Council demand. But he said he was open to “ideas being put on the table” in forthcoming talks with Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, to resolve the nuclear stand-off.

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Mr Larijani suggested that both the US Democratic party and the British were getting it right in Iraq. The Democrats’ push for a timetable for withdrawal “seems to be logical”, he said, and the British were “more intelligent than the Americans”, having made the “necessary adjustments” and retreated to Basra airport.

“If they [the Americans] have a clear definition of a timetable we’ll help them materialise it,” Mr Larijani said. “If the US is persisting with its mistakes, it shouldn’t ask for help from us.”

The US has repeatedly accused Iran of undermining security in Iraq by supplying advanced roadside bombs and Iranian-made rockets to Shia militias. The US Senate last week called for the ­Revolutionary Guards, the elite force allegedly involved in Iraq, to be designated as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

Political analysts say Iran’s strategy is to back the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad but also to ensure that the US does not leave Iraq emboldened to carry on another military campaign. Three rounds of talks between US and Iranian officials have been held in Baghdad but do not appear to have produced tangible results.

Mr Larijani, however, dismissed US accusations as “lies”. He said Iran had asked for names of Revolutionary Guard personnel that the US said were involved in helping Iraqi groups but that it had received no response.

He said Iran was the only country in the region to have supported the Iraqi government and the democratic process, while the US’s allies – by which he meant Arab governments – provided no assistance and worked against Washington.

He also claimed Tehran had information that US officials were holding talks with Izzat al-Douri, the former Ba’athist senior official who is said to be leading parts of the Sunni insurgency. “This is a disaster for the Iraqi people,” he said.

At a time of growing suspicion that either the US or Israel will resort to military strikes to prevent Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, Mr Larijani said Washington’s failures in Iraq should be a warning against embarking on a new “adventure”.

Refusing to specify what Tehran’s retaliation might be, he warned that the US should attack Iran if it wished “to receive Israel on a wheelchair” and predicted that Washington would be “sticking its hand into a ­beehive”.

Addressing the nuclear programme, Mr Larijani said it had reached an advanced stage, providing Iran with a “full command of the technology” that no one could take away. “This status cannot be ignored. I’m surprised to hear [uranium enrichment] suspension is still being talked about.”

On Friday six world powers failed to agree on a new UN sanctions resolution but gave Iran until late next month to curb its nuclear programme and are now waiting for reports from the IAEA and from Mr Solana.

Iran agreed with the IAEA a “work plan” in late August, in which it pledged to clear up issues that have raised suspicions about its nuclear intentions. The deal encouraged Russia and China to block an immediate new round of sanctions but was criticised by the US and its European allies as vague and open-ended.

Mr Larijani said the agreement with the IAEA was not a delaying tactic. Whether all the issues would be cleared by next month, however, depended on the speed with which the nuclear watchdog operated, he said. “The more acceleration there is by the agency, the faster it will be completed.”