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Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: January 29, 2007
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BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 — Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an
 
ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and PRINT
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military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch SINGLE PAGE

in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been REPRINTS

warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs. SHARE

Iran’s plan, as outlined by the

ambassador, carries the potential to
bring Iran into further conflict here
with the United States, which has
detained a number of Iranian operatives in recent weeks
and says it has proof of Iranian complicity in attacks on
American and Iraqi forces.

The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was

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Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images, for The
New York Times
Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan
Kazemi Qumi, said his country hoped to
bolster financial and military ties.
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equipment and advisers for what he called “the security
fight.” In the economic area, Mr. Qumi said, Iran was
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Mr. Qumi also acknowledged, for the first time, that two Iranians seized and later released
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Mr. Qumi’s remarks, in a 90-minute interview over tea and large pistachio nuts at the
Iranian Embassy here, amounted to the most authoritative and substantive response the
Iranians have made yet to increasingly belligerent accusations by the Bush administration
that Iran is acting against American interests in Iraq.

President Bush has said the American military is authorized to take whatever action
necessary against Iranians in Iraq found to be engaged in actions deemed hostile.

The Iranian ambassador abruptly agreed to a longstanding request for the interview —
made repeatedly after the first American seizure of Iranians here on Dec. 21 — and Africa, here we come
seemed eager to rebut the accusations. ALSO IN OPINION »
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The political and diplomatic standoff that followed the Dec. 21 raid until the Iranians were
released nine days later has contributed, along with a dispute over the Iranian nuclear
program, to greatly increased tensions between the United States and Iran. This month,
American forces detained five more Iranians in a raid on a diplomatic office in the
northern city of Erbil.
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While providing few details, the United States has said that evidence gleaned in the
Baghdad raid, made on an Iraqi Shiite leader’s residential compound, proves the Iranians
were involved in planning attacks.

How much direction, if any, Mr. Qumi was taking from his government was unclear in
the interview, in which he showed disdain for the American accusations as well as a few
flashes of restrained sarcasm.

He ridiculed the evidence that the American military has said it collected, including maps
of Baghdad delineating Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods — the kind of maps,
American officials have said, that would be useful for militias engaged in ethnic slaughter.
Mr. Qumi said the maps were so common and easily obtainable that they proved nothing.

He declined to say whether he believed the maps bore sectarian markings or address other
pieces of evidence the Americans said they had found, like manifests of weapons and
material relating to the technology of sophisticated roadside bombs. But that is not why
the Iranians were in the compound, he said.

“They worked in the security sector in the Islamic Republic, that’s clear,” Mr. Qumi said,
referring to Iran. But he said that the Iranians were in Iraq because “the two countries
agreed to solve the security problems.” The Iranians “went to meet with the Iraqi side,” he
said.

In a surprise announcement, Mr. Qumi said Iran would soon open a national bank in
Iraq, in effect creating a new Iranian financial institution right under the Americans’
noses. A senior Iraqi banking official, Hussein al-Uzri, confirmed that Iran had received a
license to open the bank, which he said would apparently be the first “wholly owned
subsidiary bank” of a foreign country in Iraq.

“This will enhance trade between the two countries,” Mr. Uzri said.

Mr. Qumi said the bank was just the first of what he said would be several in Iraq — an
agricultural bank and three private banks also intend to open branches. Other elements of
new economic cooperation, he said, include plans for Iranian shipments of kerosene and
electricity to Iraq and a new agricultural cooperative involving both countries.

He would not provide specifics on Iran’s offer of military assistance to Iraq, but said it
included increased border patrols and a proposed new “joint security committee.”

1 2 NEXT PAGE »

Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Mark Mazzetti from
Washington.

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