Larijani urges Iraqis to resist US security deal
Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2008
17:00GMT—12:00PM/EST
IRAQ – SECURITY – US
Washington, 18 November (IranVNC)—Iran’s Majlis [parliament] Speaker Ali Larijani yesterday said that there is “still room” for Iraq’s parliament to resist a security pact with the United States, aimed at defining the presence of US troops in that country through 2011.
“Iraq’s grand ayatollah, government and nation have so far resisted well the agreement, which is aimed at an all-round American rule over the country,” Larijani was quoted by Iran’s official IRNA news agency as saying yesterday evening in the city of Qom.
“But right now, the people and the parliament of Iraq must know that there is still room for resistance,” he added.
Larijani was speaking one day after Iraq’s cabinet approved the Status-of-Forces Agreement with the United States. The next step is for Iraq’s 275-member parliament to vote the deal on 24 November.
If approved, the agreement will set 31 December 2011 as the end date for the withdrawal of the approximately 140,000 US forces from Iraq, according to the latest draft of the deal.
But Larijani warned Iraqis that the US, through the security agreement, was “seeking to transform the country of Iraq into a province of America,” and added that the agreement had been changed seven times by Iraqi lawmakers.
Larijani said that in the unrevised version of the agreement, “they could without any checkings, enter Iraq and set up a base on that country’s soil [and] attack any other country by land or by air,” Larijani said.
He added: “Articles of it [the deal] have changed today, but Iraq’s parliament must still resist.”
Meanwhile, Iraq’s most senior Shiite clergyman, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, today released a statement saying it was up to Iraq’s lawmakers to decide whether or not to approve the pact, Reuters reports.
Iran has long opposed the US-Iraq security agreement, but Iraq’s government spokesperson, Ali al-Dabbagh, today said that Iran had “become less offensive on this agreement”, AFP reports.
He continued: “I think that (the Iranians) are looking to have a better policy with US. We are encouraging even the US to renew their policy toward Iran.”
Washington and Tehran do not have any diplomatic ties, but US President-elect Barack Obama said during his election campaign that he was willing to hold direct talks with Iran’s leaders.
Sources: IRNA in Persian, Agence France-Presse, Reuters
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