May 18, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iran's foreign minister made a historic trip to Baghdad on Tuesday, pledging to secure his country's borders to stop militants from entering Iraq and saying the "situation would have been much worse" if Tehran were actually supporting the insurgency as the U.S. has claimed.
Iranian envoy Kamal Kharrazi's trip -- two days after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit to support the war-ravaged country's political process -- was the highest-level visit by an official from any of Iraq's six neighboring countries since Saddam Hussein's ouster two years ago.
Kharrazi, who held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, President Jalal Talabani and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on a day of deepening sectarian violence, vowed that his country was committed to supporting Iraq's political and economic reconstruction and would do all it could to improve security conditions.
"We believe securing the borders between the two countries means security to the Islamic Republic of Iran," Kharrazi said.
Zebari said militants have infiltrated from Iran into Iraq "but we are not saying that they are approved by the Iranian government."
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~29955~2875184,00.htmlDid someone forget to tell Talabani that Iran is supposed to be the enemy? Georgie's gonna be pissed.