Posted on 04/22/2008 8:37:19 AM PDT by forkinsocket
TEHRAN, April 20 (Reuters) - Iran accused U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of "Iranophobia" on Sunday for trying to blame Tehran for Iraq's security problems.
Rice said last week she would press Iraq's Arab neighbours at a meeting on Tuesday in Kuwait to do more to support Baghdad's government and shield it from Iran's "nefarious influences".
Iran, as a neighbour of Iraq, will also attend the gathering.
"Regarding Rice's statements, these statements are not something new. American officials follow the policy of Iranophobia," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in a weekly news conference.
"We see the developments in Iraq today are the outcome of the U.S. administration's illogical policies. The American officials want to externalise the problems they are facing inside Iraq," he said, adding U.S. policies in Iraq had failed.
Washington accuses Tehran of funding, training and arming Iraqi militias, a charge Iran denies. Tehran says the presence of U.S. troops is behind Iraq's problems and wants them out.
Hosseini said Tehran would encourage Arab states to be more active in Iraq where Iran, unlike Arab states, has an embassy.
"We have always encouraged those countries to play a more active role inside Iraq ... and also resume diplomatic relations and open their embassies and support the political process in Iraq," he said.
Arab countries, who are mainly Sunni Muslim, are suspicious of Iran, which like Iraq is majority Shi'ite.
Although Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties for almost three decades, officials from both countries held three rounds of talks last year to discuss Iraqi security.
A fourth round of talks has faced several delays, although Baghdad has been encouraging the discussions to continue.
Hosseini said no date had been fixed for the next round of talks.
Iran has it wrong ..... “phobia” represents a fear of. We do not have Iranphobia.
Make that “Iranophobia”.
Ahmadinejad has Judeophobia and Americanophobia. He better is afraid.
I keep on hearing on how there's a pro-democratic, pro-American Iranian resistance...WHERE THE HELL IS IT??????? All I see is a dirty, disgusting, unshaved retard, who was one of the Hostage torturers during the Carter Incompetency Hostage Crisis of 1979-80, mouthing off.
I think it's time to go Epic Biblical Judgement on those jackasses.
Fighting Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Mountains of Iranian Kurdistan. Look up PEJAK. There are many more young Iranians willing for regime change. Hard to do if you have no arms or funds when facing fanatical, armed goons. Remember Tianamen Square 1989? Yet thousands of them hit the streets to protest the regime... only to be imprisoned or hanged afterwards. It's not their fault that the free world doesn't supply them and the media ignore them.
Iranian Majid Kavousifar bids farewell to his relatives before being hanged in public in central Tehran 02 August 2007. Two men convicted of murdering a top Iranian judge in 2005 were hanged in public in central Tehran, the first such public executions in the Iranian capital in five years. The men were executed for the murder of Hassan Moghaddas, a hardline deputy prosecutor and head of the "guidance" court in Tehran, who was shot dead by two men as he getting into his car in August 2005. AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.