Iran ready to work with US on Iraq

[ProSense]

Iran ready to work with US on Iraq

By Roula Khalaf and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran

Published: September 30 2007 19:05 | Last updated: September 30 2007 19:05

Iran is ready to help the US stabilise Iraq if Washington presents a timetable for a withdrawal of its troops, Tehran’s top security official said on Sunday.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, which answers to Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, rejected Washington’s accusations that Tehran is providing weapons to Iraqi militias, insisting the trouble with Iraq was that the US administration was pursuing a “dead-end strategy”.

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Mr Larijani suggested that both the US Democratic party and the British were getting it right in Iraq. The Democrats’ push for a timetable for withdrawal “seems to be logical”, he said, and the British were “more intelligent than the Americans”, having made the “necessary adjustments” and retreated to Basra airport.

“If they (the Americans) have a clear definition of a timetable we’ll help them materialise it,” Mr Larijani said. “If the US is persisting with its mistakes, it shouldn’t ask for help from us.”

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