The United States on Tuesday said it was concerned by suggestions that Iran is involved in deadly unrest in Iraq's holy city of Najaf and maintained it was not in Tehran's interest to foment instability in its neighbour.
"We have expressed our concern regarding this issue," deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said when asked by reporters about Iraqi Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan claim that militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr are receiving weapons from Iran.
"Our position is that Iran has an interest in a stable and peaceful Iraq, as do the other states of the region," he said.
"As a neighbour of Iraq, it is our view that Iran should use its influence toward that objective and not to take any actions that would be destabilising or otherwise contribute to elements that are not working for unity in Iraq," Ereli said.
He would neither confirm nor deny Shaalan's claim, denied by Iranian defence minister Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, but noted that the United States was concerned that Iran might "not doing everything it can to help promote national reconciliation and stability in Iraq."
On Monday, Shaalan, speaking on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television station, said Iranian-made weapons have been discovered in Najaf and accused Iran of being "the number one enemy" of the Iraqi people.
On Tuesday, Shamkhani dismissed the allegations, maintaining that any Iranian weapons in Iraq were just leftovers from the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980s and denied any interference in Iraq's internal affairs.
Fierce clashes in Najaf between US and Iraqi government forces and Sadr's militia entered their sixth day on Tuesday.
The US military estimates that more than 360 insurgents have been killed in the fighting.
But a spokesman for Sadr has insisted that only 15 militiamen have been killed and 35 wounded, the majority from cluster bombs.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.