Threatening neighbors with terrorist acts cannot be helpful to Iraq at a time that it needs help from neighbors, Tehran based foreign affairs commentator Davud Hermidas Bavand tells Radio Farda. July 26, 2004 - Officials of the interim Iraqi government have in recent weeks intensified their criticism of what they call Iranian attempts to destabilize their country. Iraqi defense minister threatened that if the practice continues, Iraq may reciprocate by supporting terror attacks within Iran.
“Iran has for many years had close relations with anti-Saddam Iraqi groups, such as the supreme council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq and the Kurdish parties, and these relations have continued since Saddam’s fall,” Tehran University international relations professor Davud Hermidas-Bavand tells Radio Farda’s broadcaster Leyli Sadr.
“In the beginning, the US officials were supportive of these relations and the border traffic between the two countries, but recent security crisis in Iraq and other problems have brought the issue of the neighboring country’s possible support for some insurgent groups inside Iraq to the forefront, and the coalition forces along with Iraqis have intensified their border patrol,” he adds.
“The Iraqi officials are in fact warning the neighboring countries against any interference in Iraq’s internal affairs,” he says, “but for a country confronted with security and other problems and in need of cooperation with its neighbors, a threatening tone cannot be helpful.”
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