Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 4, 2007
Pg. 7
By Alissa J. Rubin
BAGHDAD, April 3 — An Iranian diplomat kidnapped by armed men wearing uniforms of the Iraqi security forces was freed here on Tuesday, Iraq’s foreign minister said, adding that he continued to work to free five Iranians held separately by American military forces and was optimistic that they would be released soon.
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, said in an interview that the freeing of the diplomat was unrelated to the negotiations over the 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran, accused of trespassing into its waters.
“People are trying to link this to the British sailors’ case,” Mr. Zebari said. “Really, it has no connection whatsoever.”
“Even for the other Iranian detainees, we’ve been repeatedly asking the MNFI to release them,” he added, referring to the Multinational Forces in Iraq. “We have a sense they are going to be released; we have some good pledges that they will be released after the investigation is finished.”
Other Iraqi politicians thought the timing of the diplomat’s release was difficult to separate entirely from the negotiations over the British sailors and marines. “It’s a curious coincidence,” said Ahmad Chalabi, the Shiite politician who has ties to Iran and is in charge of the government’s de-Baathification commission.
The released Iranian diplomat, Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at Iran’s mission in Baghdad, walked into the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad this morning, Mr. Zebari said, adding that Mr. Sharafi remained uncertain who had kidnapped him.
Mr. Sharafi was seized more than eight weeks ago as he emerged from a bank in the middle-class, predominantly Shiite Karada neighborhood. At the time, the Iraqi police managed to stop one of the cars in the convoy that had whisked the diplomat away.
The four men inside were taken to the police station. They said they worked for an Iraqi security service, but when pressed, the security services denied that the men worked for them in any official capacity, Mr. Zebari said.
“We went to our security services and said, ‘Do they work for you, do you have him?’ ” Mr. Zebari said. “They denied it. We went to the American military, the intelligence services. They all denied they had him. But my advice to my government was to keep the four in detention, until the diplomat was released.”
The four remain detained in an Interior Ministry facility, Mr. Zebari said. Though he said he still could not say for certain who kidnapped the diplomat, others familiar with the case said they believed that those responsible worked for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which is affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Zebari said that a separate case, of five Iranians captured in Irbil in January by United States forces, was similarly frustrating, but that at least in that case he knew where the men were being held.
The United States involvement in the detention of at least some of the Iranians has forced Iraq to undertake delicate and difficult negotiations with two powerful countries on which it relies for support: the United States and Iran. Mr. Zebari said the seizure of Mr. Sharafi, an accredited diplomat, had been “embarrassing for my government.”
“We are treading a very thin line,” he said. “We are in a very difficult position to balance these two conflicting interests,” meaning the United States and Iran.
Related to the de-Baathification effort, political jockeying continued around a plan to liberalize the law that currently puts sharp restrictions on access by former members of the old ruling Baathist party to positions in the current government.
An official spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani distanced the ayatollah from reports published Monday and Tuesday saying that the marjaiya, the most senior Shiite clerics, disagreed with the plan, which was proposed jointly by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani.
Since Ayatollah Sistani rarely speaks for himself, but makes his views known through written statements and clerics affiliated with him, it can be difficult to determine his true views. However, Tuesday’s comments suggested that he was backing away from wholesale criticism of the plan.
The proposed measure has the support of the United States government, which has made it more difficult for many Iraqis, including the marjaiya, to embrace it. Hamid al-Khafaf, the spokesman for Ayatollah Sistani in Beirut and one of the few people who is authorized to speak in his name, said, the news media’s depiction on Monday of Ayatollah Sistani’s view of the de-Baathification law was “absolutely untrue.”
Three Shiite politicians reached Tuesday said that the clerics agreed that a compromise had to be reached among the drafts, some of which took a far less liberal approach than the plan submitted by Mr. Maliki and Mr. Talabani.
Meanwhile, 17 people were killed in violence around Iraq on Tuesday, and 10 bodies were found in Baghdad and one in Diyala Province. The Iraqi government announced late Tuesday that the curfew in Baghdad would allow people to stay out until 10 p.m., instead of the previous 8 p.m.
The United States military announced Tuesday that a marine was killed Monday in Anbar Province.
Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Najaf, Baquba and Kut.
April 4, 2007
Pg. 7
By Alissa J. Rubin
BAGHDAD, April 3 — An Iranian diplomat kidnapped by armed men wearing uniforms of the Iraqi security forces was freed here on Tuesday, Iraq’s foreign minister said, adding that he continued to work to free five Iranians held separately by American military forces and was optimistic that they would be released soon.
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, said in an interview that the freeing of the diplomat was unrelated to the negotiations over the 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran, accused of trespassing into its waters.
“People are trying to link this to the British sailors’ case,” Mr. Zebari said. “Really, it has no connection whatsoever.”
“Even for the other Iranian detainees, we’ve been repeatedly asking the MNFI to release them,” he added, referring to the Multinational Forces in Iraq. “We have a sense they are going to be released; we have some good pledges that they will be released after the investigation is finished.”
Other Iraqi politicians thought the timing of the diplomat’s release was difficult to separate entirely from the negotiations over the British sailors and marines. “It’s a curious coincidence,” said Ahmad Chalabi, the Shiite politician who has ties to Iran and is in charge of the government’s de-Baathification commission.
The released Iranian diplomat, Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at Iran’s mission in Baghdad, walked into the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad this morning, Mr. Zebari said, adding that Mr. Sharafi remained uncertain who had kidnapped him.
Mr. Sharafi was seized more than eight weeks ago as he emerged from a bank in the middle-class, predominantly Shiite Karada neighborhood. At the time, the Iraqi police managed to stop one of the cars in the convoy that had whisked the diplomat away.
The four men inside were taken to the police station. They said they worked for an Iraqi security service, but when pressed, the security services denied that the men worked for them in any official capacity, Mr. Zebari said.
“We went to our security services and said, ‘Do they work for you, do you have him?’ ” Mr. Zebari said. “They denied it. We went to the American military, the intelligence services. They all denied they had him. But my advice to my government was to keep the four in detention, until the diplomat was released.”
The four remain detained in an Interior Ministry facility, Mr. Zebari said. Though he said he still could not say for certain who kidnapped the diplomat, others familiar with the case said they believed that those responsible worked for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which is affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Zebari said that a separate case, of five Iranians captured in Irbil in January by United States forces, was similarly frustrating, but that at least in that case he knew where the men were being held.
The United States involvement in the detention of at least some of the Iranians has forced Iraq to undertake delicate and difficult negotiations with two powerful countries on which it relies for support: the United States and Iran. Mr. Zebari said the seizure of Mr. Sharafi, an accredited diplomat, had been “embarrassing for my government.”
“We are treading a very thin line,” he said. “We are in a very difficult position to balance these two conflicting interests,” meaning the United States and Iran.
Related to the de-Baathification effort, political jockeying continued around a plan to liberalize the law that currently puts sharp restrictions on access by former members of the old ruling Baathist party to positions in the current government.
An official spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani distanced the ayatollah from reports published Monday and Tuesday saying that the marjaiya, the most senior Shiite clerics, disagreed with the plan, which was proposed jointly by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani.
Since Ayatollah Sistani rarely speaks for himself, but makes his views known through written statements and clerics affiliated with him, it can be difficult to determine his true views. However, Tuesday’s comments suggested that he was backing away from wholesale criticism of the plan.
The proposed measure has the support of the United States government, which has made it more difficult for many Iraqis, including the marjaiya, to embrace it. Hamid al-Khafaf, the spokesman for Ayatollah Sistani in Beirut and one of the few people who is authorized to speak in his name, said, the news media’s depiction on Monday of Ayatollah Sistani’s view of the de-Baathification law was “absolutely untrue.”
Three Shiite politicians reached Tuesday said that the clerics agreed that a compromise had to be reached among the drafts, some of which took a far less liberal approach than the plan submitted by Mr. Maliki and Mr. Talabani.
Meanwhile, 17 people were killed in violence around Iraq on Tuesday, and 10 bodies were found in Baghdad and one in Diyala Province. The Iraqi government announced late Tuesday that the curfew in Baghdad would allow people to stay out until 10 p.m., instead of the previous 8 p.m.
The United States military announced Tuesday that a marine was killed Monday in Anbar Province.
Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Najaf, Baquba and Kut.