U.S. Missed a ‘Golden Opportunity,’ Iranian Says

The United States missed a “golden opportunity” to improve relations with Iran over the past year as the two nations increased contacts both publicly and behind the scenes during the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in an interview with The Times.

Noting Tehran’s cooperation in brokering a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan and its quiet assistance in tracking Al Qaeda operatives passing through Iran, Kharrazi said his government was “shocked” when President Bush labeled Iran one of three nations in an “axis of evil” during his State of the Union address in January.

“Everyone was thinking that it was [moving] on a positive course.... We had very good cooperation on Afghanistan with the United States. Despite these positive moves and our constructive role, look how they responded. That was a shock for everyone. This does not produce trust, but mistrust,” he said late Monday.

“It was a golden opportunity for the U.S. administration to change the course and develop better relations, but they failed.”

Bush’s condemnation of the Iranian government reflected U.S. concerns about Iran’s support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two Palestinian groups that have sponsored suicide bombings against Israel, as well as for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, according to U.S. officials. Washington also charges that Iran is working on its own weapons of mass destruction, despite vehement denials from the government and trips by nuclear and chemical weapons inspectors to Tehran.

Iran’s experience in playing a “positive” role in Afghanistan has made Tehran wary of what position to take if the United States should eventually engage militarily across an even more important Iranian border--with Iraq, Kharrazi said.

Because Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran during their 1980-88 war, Kharrazi said, Tehran shares U.S. concerns about Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction. But Iran is also deeply worried about the potential spillover--from political instability in the region to a mass influx of refugees across the border--in the event of a U.S. military action against Baghdad.

Iran is also uncomfortable with any use of force to change the regime in Baghdad and supports other options.

“The one thing [on which] we certainly differ with the United States is using force to change the government of another country. We don’t think this is a legitimate right of others, regardless of how powerful they may be. This is up to the people of Iraq to decide their future government,” said Kharrazi, who served as Iran’s U.N. ambassador from 1989 to 1997.

At the same time, however, Kharrazi indicated that Iran would accept the use of force as a “reality” if a new U.N. resolution authorizes military action against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. And he said Hussein had failed to prove that his regime had ended its aggressive intent against neighboring countries.

Kharrazi also said that Iraqis have the right to demand and fight for greater freedom, and he believes that the majority of Iraqis want a more representative government.

Tehran allows at least three of the six major Iraqi opposition groups supported by the United States--the Iraqi National Congress, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan--to have major offices in Iran. In an exemption from its economic sanctions on Iran, Washington pays for the office of the Iraqi National Congress in Tehran.

But in the meantime, Iran will continue to have diplomatic ties with Iraq and engage in a dialogue, particularly to resolve the many issues lingering 14 years after the end of the nations’ war.

“Our current policy is to solve outstanding issues which remain from the time of the war, such as prisoners of war. As long as this regime is in Baghdad, there should be some mechanisms to guarantee good neighborly relations and no more aggression,” Kharrazi said.

After the debate at the United Nations on weapons inspectors, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri is scheduled to visit Tehran later this month, Kharrazi said.

On Iraq, Kharrazi said his government had played a key role in the arrest last month in Amsterdam of a militant Islamic leader with ties to Al Qaeda who had set up shop in northern Iraq.

Mullah Krekar, whose full name is Najm Din Faraj Ahmad, is the leader of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish rebel group that has developed a growing presence in northern Iraq since the Sept. 11 attacks. Many of its fighters, who oppose both the Iraqi regime and the Iraqi opposition, are believed to have trained with the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan.

“We’ve been very serious with the case of Al Qaeda, as we are against their ideologies, their tactics and their strategies,” Kharrazi said. “We have no relations with them and oppose them and wherever we find them, we arrest them.”

The Iranian foreign minister, who is in New York for the U.N. General Assembly opening session, said Tehran had also acted this year on tips from the United States identifying areas and specific buildings used by Al Qaeda members or supporters passing from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran. But he said the intelligence had proved dated or useless.

Pakistan has become a more active border than Iran recently as an escape route for Al Qaeda supporters in Afghanistan, according to other Iranian officials.

Iran would welcome additional intelligence collaboration to apprehend terrorist suspects, Kharrazi said.

“We said any piece of information from any source would be helpful for us to find these people and arrest them. So if the Americans have any information, let them give it to us right away.”

Kharrazi said Tehran had not closed the door on improving ties with Washington, which have been frozen since shortly after the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Iranian militants held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

“Certainly there are ways two countries can solve their problems, provided there is political will,” he said. “We have the political will provided the Americans are eager to develop better relations based on mutual respect and equal footing.”

He called on Washington to take steps to prove “sincerity and readiness,” including accepting Iran’s government and not interfering in its internal affairs.

Iran last month dispatched a seasoned diplomat, Mohammed Javad Zarif, who has long experience in the United States, as its new ambassador to the United Nations--a controversial appointment that was challenged by hard-liners in Tehran. Zarif’s approval as Iran’s top representative in the U.S. is widely seen in Iran as a signal of interest in eventual rapprochement by the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami.