Iran opposes meddling in Iraq

Rouhani says militants' backers will themselves become targets

Iran's president and supreme leader have given separate warnings against foreign intervention in Iraq - opposing both the deployment of US forces and the funding of Sunni jihadi fighters by Gulf nations.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday he opposed intervention in Iraq by the United States or anyone else, saying Iraqis themselves could bring an end to violence there, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters of state, added in remarks to judiciary officials that Washington aimed to keep Iraq under its control and place its own "stooges" in power. The conflict there was not sectarian, but was really between those who wanted Iraq in the US camp and those who sought Iraq's independence, IRNA reported.

"We are strongly opposed to US and other (countries') intervention in Iraq," IRNA quoted Khamenei as saying.

"We don't approve of it, as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition. And God willing, they will do so."

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama said up to 300 US military advisers will be deployed to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a Sunni jihadi group that has captured large area of northern Iraq this month.

Khamenei said that the US was not pleased with the ongoing political process in Iraq, with widespread participation in elections and voters freely choosing their leaders in parliamentary elections in April. He said the US wanted an Iraq that was "under its hegemony and ruled by its stooges".

Khamenei reiterated Iranian declarations that the Maliki government "has the ability to stop this plot, with collective efforts that include the people."

Funding jihadi groups

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, meanwhile, warned on Sunday that Muslim states that funnel petrodollars to jihadist Sunni fighters wreaking havoc in Iraq will become their next target.

Rouhani did not name any country, but officials and media in mainly Shiite Iran have hinted that the ISIL insurgents operating in Iraq and Syria are being financially and militarily supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

"I advise Muslim countries that support the terrorists with their petrodollars to stop," Rouhani said in remarks reported by the website of Iran's state broadcaster.

"Tomorrow you will be targeted ... by these savage terrorists. Wash your hands of killing and the killing of Muslims," he added.

ISIL militants have seized a swath of Iraqi territory in a lightning offensive, with the Baghdad government's security forces hard-pressed to prevent the advance.

Riyadh has warned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is steering Iraq toward civil war through policies that exclude the country's Sunni minority.

Iran, the predominant Shiite powerhouse in the Middle East, says it will support Maliki against ISIL, which is also battling the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another Teheran ally.

Rouhani called for unity and peaceful co-existence between "Shiites and Sunnis who are brothers".

"For centuries, Shiites and Sunnis have lived alongside each other in Iran, Iraq, the Levant, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf and North Africa ... in peaceful coexistence," he said.

Reuters - AP

Iraqi Shiite fighters parade with their weapons on Saturday in the capital, Baghdad. Shiite fighters marched in Baghdad and south Iraq in a dramatic show of force aimed at Sunni militants who overran swaths of territory in a crisis threatening to rip the country apart. Ahmad Al-Rubaye / Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 06/23/2014 page12)