Iran president urges U.N. probe on Afghanistan, Iraq

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon to set up an inquiry into the aims of Western military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, in a letter released on Monday.

The letter charged that US and NATO methods of dealing with terrorism in the region had failed and said it was up to Ban, as UN Secretary-General, to launch a probe whose results would be presented to the 192-nation UN General Assembly.

US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003 to end the rule of Saddam Hussein, later becoming embroiled in a war against al Qaeda and other insurgents. In Afghanistan, there are nearly 120,000 foreign troops working under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to fight Taliban forces.

Ahmadinejad said that as a result of the Western presence “a few million people” had been killed, wounded or displaced, illicit opium poppy cultivation had increased “and the peoples of our region continue to live under the shadow of threat.”

“We have emphasized time and again that settlement of problems in our region does not need wide-scale military expeditions or actions,” said Ahmadinejad, whose country borders Afghanistan to the east and Iraq to the west.

“Excellency, you are at least expected to appoint an independent fact-finding team which is trusted by the countries of the region, to launch a comprehensive investigation into the main intentions of NATO military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, the methods used, and the outcome of their presence and engagement,” he told Ban.

Iranian media reports quoted Ahmadinejad’s letter as also calling for an investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, saying they had been used as a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But the text of the letter distributed to media in New York by Iran’s UN mission contained no such call. UN spokesman Farhan Haq said Ban was studying the letter.

“NUCLEAR THREAT”

It was not immediately clear what had prompted the letter, which began by offering Ban good wishes for the March 21 Nowruz festival, celebrated in Iran and neighbouring countries.

Iran’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that Tehran would complain to the United Nations about what it saw as a threat by US President Barack Obama to attack it with nuclear weapons.

Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea, both involved in nuclear disputes with the West, were excluded from new limits on the use of US atomic weapons.

Ahmadinejad’s letter to Ban did not refer to the nuclear issue, but it was raised in a statement to a General Assembly committee on Monday by Iran’s UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee, who branded the new U.S. policy as “state terrorism.”

“Can the US new nuclear strategy which authorizes the use of nuclear bombs against other countries, including Iran, be named other than ‘state terrorism’ in its truest sense?” asked Khazaee, accusing Washington of “nuclear blackmail.”

It was unclear whether Khazaee’s remarks, part of a statement on international terrorism to the committee, amounted to the complaint mentioned by the foreign ministry.

Both Khazaee’s statement and Ahmadinejad’s letter dealt at length with Iran’s arrest in February of Abdolmalek Rigi, leader of a Sunni Muslim rebel group in mainly Shi’ite Iran, repeating allegations that NATO countries had supported him.

The United States and Britain, as well as Pakistan, have denied previous charges by Iran that they backed Rigi’s group, known as Jundollah (God’s soldiers).

Ahmadinejad, who said he was attaching to his letter a video on Rigi’s “crimes,” said he expected Ban to condemn them, “restore” the rights of the Iranian people, “impeach” those who had supported Rigi and condemn the backing “given by NATO members for terrorism in the region.”