,
Iran plans to expand its economic and military ties with Iraq, including offering training to Iraqi forces and opening an Iranian bank branch in Baghdad, The New York Times has reported.
Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, told the Times in an interview conducted Sunday that his country was prepared to offer training, equipment and advisers to Iraqi government forces for “the security fight”.
Qomi also acknowledged for the first time that two Iranians seized by US forces on December 21 and released nine days later were security officials, as the United States had claimed, the newspaper said.
“They worked in the security sector in the Islamic Republic, that's clear,” Qomi was quoted as saying, referring to Iran. But he said the Iranians were there for legitimate discussions with the Iraqi government.
The two were in Iraq because “the two countries agreed to solve the security problems” and “went to meet with the Iraqi side,” Qomi said.
The envoy rejected US claims that evidence found in the raid at the Baghdad compound of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders, proved the Iranians were involved in planning attacks, the Times said.
US officials have said the evidence included maps of Baghdad delineating Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods, the kind that would be useful for militias engaged in ethnic attacks, the Times said.
But Qomi said the maps were so common and easily obtainable that they proved nothing, the newspaper said.
Washington has authorized US troops in Iraq to capture or kill Iranian agents found in the country.
Less than a month after the December arrests, the US military detained five Iranians at an office in the northern city of Arbil on January 11, accusing them of being agents for Tehran, arming militias and inciting anti-US attacks in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Qomi said Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for Iraq reconstruction.
“We have experience of reconstruction after war,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis.”
The envoy, in an interview in his embassy in Baghdad, also said Iran would soon open a national bank in Iraq.
A senior Iraqi banking official, Hussein al-Uzri, confirmed that Iran had received a license to open the bank, the Times said.
Uzri said it would apparently be the first “wholly-owned subsidiary bank” of a foreign country in Iraq and would “enhance trade” between the neighbors, the paper said.
