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Britain's Iraq envoy says Syria and Iran cooperative
By Alistair Lyon Reuters
Jordan Times, Monday, October 27, 2003
BAGHDAD — A top British official said on Sunday that Syria and Iran, accused by some US officials of subverting efforts to stabilise and rebuild Iraq, had in fact been cooperative. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the most senior British official in the US-led occupying administration, said a dialogue was under way with Damascus and Tehran to encourage them to back more openly the postwar drive to create a new Iraq.
“I think on the whole that they have been quite cooperative,” said Greenstock, Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations, when asked if Syria and Iran were actively trying to destabilise Iraq.
“But there are different parts of these (Syrian and Iranian government) machines, with different habits in their background, and I would like their approaches to be more unequivocally supportive than they are.”
“But we are talking to them,” Greenstock told Reuters. “I think they realise this is going somewhere, that they are going to have to live with the new Iraq.”
The United States lists Syria and Iran among states that support "terrorism" (i.e. resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine) and accuses them of seeking weapons of mass destruction. Unlike its US ally, Britain has favoured dialogue with such nations.
Sticks, Not Carrots
US President George W. Bush has called Iran part of an “axis of evil” and, if the Senate votes as the House of Representatives has already done, he may impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on Syria until the US government says it no longer supports "terrorists" (Palestinian resistance).
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Syria and Iran on Friday of complicating efforts to stabilise Iraq because foreign fighters were crossing their borders to attack US troops and their allies.
“It sure would be a lot easier if they were helpful, instead of harmful,” Rumsfeld told The Washington Times.
Syria and Iran deny they are interfering in Iraq, though each has voiced suspicion of US motives for the invasion that toppled their former enemy Saddam Hussein in April.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Sharaa told Britain's Sunday Telegraph his country could not prevent fighters from slipping across a long, porous border with Iraq.
“They are very determined and many of them dream of seeing an American tank,” Sharaa said.
“We are doing everything we can. We have tightened our checkpoints and are turning people back. But the border is long and we cannot cover it all,” he said.
Greenstock, who is Britain's special representative to Iraq, said foreign Islamist groups might now be operating in Iraq and attacking US and other targets there.
“I think it's clear that they have ambitions to do so,” he said. “It's quite difficult to separate out the individual attacks and say exactly where they are coming from.
“There may be a combination of insiders and outsiders here, with different knowledge and skills and backgrounds, which is part of the danger that we face,” Greenstock said.
“They are both the enemies of the new Iraq and I think Iraqis are increasingly regarding them as such.”
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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