Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied on Monday that Iran is supplying sophisticated weapons to Iraqi militants and said peace would return to Iraq only when United States and other foreign forces leave.
”The US administration and [US President George] Bush are used to accusing others,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with US television network ABC.
US-led forces in Baghdad on Sunday showed off what US officials termed ”a growing body” of evidence of Iranian weapons being used to kill their soldiers.
The officials showed journalists fragments of what they said were Iranian-manufactured weapons and said that those at the ”highest levels” of Tehran’s government were involved in arming Iraqi militants.
Ahmadinejad said the fact that US-led forces in Iraq were ”showing some pieces of papers” and calling them documents did not prove anything.
”There should be a court to prove the case and to verify the case,” Ahmadinejad said, speaking through an interpreter.
The White House held fast to its insistence that some explosive devices in Iraq were of Iranian origin and said the way for the Iranians to stand for peace ”is to make sure that there are no shipments of weapons and no shipment also of support for those who are trying to kill Americans or destabilise the democracy in Iraq.”
White House spokesperson Tony Snow avoided harsh rhetoric, however, saying: ”We think that if the president of Iran wants to put a stop to it, we wish him luck and hope he’ll do it real soon.”
A senior US defence official said 170 coalition forces had been killed by Iranian-made roadside bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, which had been smuggled into Iraq.
Pressed on the accusation of Iranian involvement, Ahmadinejad accused the US of trying to hide its ”defeat” in Iraq by pointing fingers at others.
He said peace and security would return to Iraq only when foreign forces leave.
”We shy away from any kind of conflict and any kind of bloodshed,” he said. ”We are opposed to any kind of conflict and also the presence of foreign forces in Iraq and that’s why we are opposed to the presence of Americans.
”We tell them ‘leave the country’, and any other foreigners should leave the country and there should be no foreigner in Iraq and then you see that you have peace,” Ahmadinejad said.
Britain backs US
Britain on Monday appeared to back US claims that Iran had supplied weapons and explosives to Shi’ite militants in neighbouring Iraq for use against coalition forces.
Asked whether Tony Blair supported the US’s allegations, his official spokesperson said the prime minister had long been on record as having concerns about Tehran’s supply of weapons to insurgents.
”Those concerns have not gone away at all,” he added. ”We certainly believe that if the Iranian government wanted to, it could address these concerns but we don’t see any signs that it is.”
He added: ”We keep finding the weaponry, which we don’t believe to be sourced from anywhere else.”
In February 2005, Blair told a parliamentary committee there was ”no doubt at all” that Iran sponsored terrorism abroad.
In October the same year, he suggested Iran or Iran-backed Hezbollah militia were responsible for a spate of attacks on British troops in southern Iraq and coalition forces elsewhere in the country.
He then warned that Iran would be a ”real threat” to world security if it continued its belligerent stance towards Israel after Ahmadinejad called for the Jewish state to be ”wiped off the map”.
On a visit to the United Arab Emirates in December last year, Blair called for moderate Arab and Gulf states to form an alliance against Iran because of its support for extremism, amid heightened talk of military action.
And just this month, he accused Iran of ”deliberately fomenting sectarianism and conflict” in the Middle East on top of its defiance of the international community over its disputed nuclear programme. — Reuters, AFP