Zebari: No Iranian Force in Iraq to Fight ISIL
(FNA)- Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari rejected some media reports that Iran has dispatched military forces to Iraq to fight the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, in that country.
"No Iranian militia has been sent to Iraq since Iraq does not need it. Iran is an important neighbor the stability of which is considered as Iraq's stability," he said in a joint press conference with his Canadian counterpart John Baird in Baghdad.
In relevant remarks in August, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif strongly dismissed western media claims about the presence of Iranian forces in Iraq to help the country's government in the fight against terrorists.
"We believe that our Iraqi brothers, including Kurdish and Sunni brothers, are capable of defending themselves and Iraq does not need Iran to defend it," the Iranian foreign minister said in a joint press conference with Zebari in Baghdad and in response to the question if recent media reports on the deployment of Iranian soldiers in Iraq were true.
The US Wall Street Journal in a report in June claimed that Tehran has sent two elite units of its IRGC to Iraq to fight against the ISIL terrorists - an Al-Qaeda offshoot.
The Iranian foreign minister pointed to Iran-Iraq bilateral ties, and said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran defends the territorial integrity, development and security of Iraq and sees it as a priority of its foreign diplomacy."
He pointed to Iran-Iraq economic relations, and said, "We consider economic ties with Iraq as long-term and strategic relations, specially with regard to the fact that the two neighbors share common history."
Officials both in Tehran and Baghdad have repeatedly rejected the reports on the deployment of Iranian troops in Iraq after such reports appeared in some western media outlets.
In June, Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Mohammad Majid al-Sheikh rejected certain media claims about the presence of Iranian military forces in Iraq to help the Iraqi government in the fight against terrorists.
"These are just the rumors of biased and despiteful media which are seeking to sow discord among the regional states, specially Iran and Iraq," Majid al-Sheikh said, addressing a conference in Tehran.
"Iraq doesn’t need any country neither for weapons nor for the military forces at all; hence, I emphasize that neither General (Qassem) Soleimani (Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force) nor any other (Iranian) figure is in Iraq," he reiterated.
Referring to the recent surge in the terrorist attacks in Iraq, Majid al-Sheikh said the parliamentary election in Iraq was a shocking event for the terrorists, certain regional states and their western supporters, and that they have resorted to terrorist attacks to attain their ominous goals when they came to face their failure in the election.