mebb.de
Iran-Krise

Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Iran und dem Irak werden in der Zukunft notwendigerweise noch enger werden – egal was man davon on Washington hält oder nicht, schreiben Louise Roug und Borzou Daragahi heute in der LAT.

American officials oppose the presence in Iraq of Iranian officials and members of the Revolutionary Guard, which is controlled by religious hard-liners in Iran. Washington and Tehran have been at odds for decades and are in a standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

But to Iraq, Iran is its biggest trading partner and a source of tourist revenue, mainly from the thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims who travel to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala every year.

In Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish north, much of the economy is founded on trade with Iran and the smuggling of contraband into the Islamic Republic. Since the 1979 founding of Iran’s theocracy, Kurdistan has been a transit point for banned alcohol, movies and satellite dishes.

Statt die Grenze zum Iran zu schliessen und die Beziehungen zum Nachbarland zu reduzieren, möchte die irakische Regierung diese Beziehungen noch weiter ausbauen.

“We, as Iraqis, have our own interest,” [Außenminister Hoshyar] Zebari said in an interview with The Times. “We are bound by geographic destiny to live with” Iran, adding that the Iraqi government wanted “to engage them constructively.”

Die irakische Regierung möchte, dass die fünf Iraner, die in Arbil von US Truppen festgenommen wurden, wieder auf freien Fuß gesetzt werden. Zebari bezeichnete die fünf in dem Interview als “iranische Offizielle”, die in einem “Verbindungsbüro” arbeiteten, in dem auch Visa für den Iran erteilt wurden. Offensichtlich war dieses Büro aber kein offizielles Konsulat.

Kurdish regional authorities and the government in Baghdad knew about the Iranians in Irbil and were in the process of transforming the agency into a consulate, Zebari said.

“This is not a new discovery, this office,” he said. The Iranians had been “working there publicly, openly. It was not a clandestine network. That’s the thing we need to explain to our friends.”

He said the Iraqi government had not been shown any of what [US General; ME] Casey said was evidence that the Iranians were spies. He said Iraq had not been part of the interrogation.