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Iraq
Iran: Iraqis entitled to decide their fate
2008-10-20
The Head of Iran's Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, says the Iraqi people are seeking the right to determine their own fate.
He says the words but he means something different ...
In a Sunday meeting with Iraq's former prime minister Ebrahim Jafari, Ayatollah Rafsanjani urged Iraq's political and religious figures to safeguard the country's independence and security. "There is no doubt that Washington's claims of 'war on terror' and 'democracy in Iraq' were threadbare excuses to invade the country. Such claims are proven to be all but lies and fallacy," said Rafsanjani.

Jafari, for his part, asserted that the Iraqi people are fully capable of deciding the future of their country and stressed that a US-proposed security fact, namely Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), would be detrimental to the Iraqi nation.

Washington has pushed hard for an Iraq-US security pact, which would provide it with a legal basis for the presence of US troops in Iraq after their mandate under the United Nations expires later this year. The deal has faced severe criticism from prominent Iraqi political and religious figures, who say it would undermine the country's national sovereignty.

Nearly a million Iraqis staged massive rallies in Baghdad on Saturday to protest the controversial deal.

The latest draft of a security deal currently under negotiation between the US and Baghdad still envisages immunity from legal prosecution for US nationals inside Iraq.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV in October, Iraqi lawmaker Mohammed Kamid al-Humedawi said the United States is using the country's debts as leverage to force Baghdad into signing the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). "Baghdad is under pressure by Washington to accept the security deal in exchange for clearing all of Iraq's debts," said al-Humedawi.

This is while the Iraqi web site al-Morsad reported on Oct. 10 that US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had threatened to oust the Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki unless he signed the controversial deal.
Posted by:Fred

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