Monday, February 12, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Monday rejected U.S. accusations that the highest levels of Iranian leadership have armed Shiite militants in Iraq with armor-piercing roadside bombs, a day after U.S. military officials in Baghdad said they had traced the weapons to Tehran.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised interview aired Monday that his country was opposed to conflict and bloodshed in Iraq and that problems in Iraq should be solved with dialogue, not the use of force.
"There should be a court to prove the case and to verify the case. The position of our government ... is also the same. We are opposed to any kind of conflict in Iraq," Ahmadinejad to ABC's "Good Morning America."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran's top leaders were not intervening in Iraq and considered "any intervention in Iraq's internal affairs as a weakening of the popular Iraqi government, and we are opposed to that."
"Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence. Such charges are unacceptable," Hosseini told reporters in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad said Iraq's lack of security also was a "disadvantage" to Iran.
"Our position regarding Iraq is very clear. We are asking for peace. We're asking for security. And we will be sad to see people get killed, no matter who they are," he told ABC.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251406,00.html