Iranian envoy wounds 'confirmed'

The head of the International Red Cross in Tehran says he saw wounds on an Iranian diplomat who has alleged that US forces in Iraq tortured him.

Peter Stoeker said there were marks on Jalal Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but he was unable to say if they were the result of torture.

Iranian media quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA tortured him "day and night".

Mr Sharafi was abducted in Iraq in February and released last week. The US denies any involvement in the case.

Mr Sharafi, second secretary at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, says he was kidnapped by Iraqi agents operating under the supervision of the CIA.

Iranian state media has quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA subjected him to torture as they questioned him about Iranian assistance to groups inside Iraq.

'Evidence of torture'

Iranian television has shown pictures of Mr Sharafi receiving treatment in hospital and quotes a doctor's report saying there are signs someone drilled holes in his feet as well as broke his nose, injured his ear and wounded his neck and back.

The ICRC's Mr Stoeker said he had been happy to meet Mr Sharafi in hospital because his organisation had been unable to find him in Iraq.

He confirmed he saw wounds on Mr Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but, not being a doctor, he was unable to say if they were the result of torture and if so, who inflicted them.

"The United States had nothing to do with Mr Sharafi's detention and we welcome his return to Iran," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, last week.

He dismissed the claims as "just the latest theatrics of a government trying to deflect attention away from its own unacceptable actions".

An unnamed US intelligence official also denied any claims of abuse, saying: "The CIA does not conduct or condone torture."

Mr Sharafi was freed in Iraq on 3 April, the day before the 15 British sailors were set free in Iran, but no link has been confirmed between the two cases.

Iran's arrest of sailors was legitimate, says former UK envoy

London, March 26, IRNA

UK Sailors-Iran Arrests

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray Monday supported Iran's decision to arrest 15 UK marines in the Persian Gulf last week.

"In international law the Iranian government were not out of order in detaining foreign military personnel in waters to which they have a legitimate claim," Murray said, who was also a previous head of Foreign Office's maritime section, carrying out negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

"For the Royal Navy, to be interdicting shipping within the twelve mile limit of territorial seas in a region they know full well is subject to maritime boundary dispute, is unnecessarily provocative," he said.

The former envoy said that this was "especially true as apparently they were not looking for weapons but for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty."
"What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes go to do with the Royal Navy?" he questioned in comments on his webpage, set up after he was sacked from his post in 2004 after criticizing British foreign policy.

While working for the Foreign Office, Murray was also head of the UK's Embargo Surveillance Centre, analyzing Iraqi attempts to evade sanctions and providing information to UK military forces and to other governments to effect physical enforcement of the embargo.

He said that under international law, Britain would have been allowed to enter Iranian territorial waters if in "hot pursuit" of terrorists, slavers or pirates. But added "they weren't doing any of those things."
"Plainly, they were not engaged in piracy or in hostilities against Iran. The Iranians can feel content that they have demonstrated the ability to exercise effective sovereignty over the waters they claim," the former envoy said.

He criticized the "ridiculous logic" of Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying he was creating a mess that "gets us further into trouble." The Daily Mirror, which has been an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, reminded its readers Monday that "if the UK had never joined the disastrous invasion of Iraq, the 15 would not have been put in a position where they could be seized."
In its editorial on the incident, it also said that "US threats in the recent past to launch military strikes on Iran have inflamed tensions."
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Questions

Monday, March 26, 2007

Al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday in a very definitive way the demise of Allawi's attempt to put together a coalition what would represent an alternative to the Maliki administration, based on statements of non-support by a key member of the Islamic Party of Iraq (part of the big Sunni coalition); by a spokesman for the Kurdish parties; and by the head of the Fadhila party, which had most recently been in talks with Allawi. The Al-Quds story was on page three, under its own by-line. Then on Saturday, the Shiite news-site Karbalanews.net reported the same story verbatim, attributing it to "international news agencies". The story is unusually solidly-sourced, but to me at least it's not entirely clear where it originated. Western media haven't mentioned it, which may or may not mean anything.

In any event, it is worth highlighting a remark attributed to a leader of Allawi's own group, Izzat Shabandar, who said that in spite of Allawi's efforts, the initiative "lacked American support." This comes as Khalilzad is being replaced as US ambassador, suggesting (to me, that is) the possibility that what these reports reflect is an American decision to fold the Allawi initiative and replace it with something else. But what?

Meanwhile, Al-Hayat continues to talk up the idea of cooperation between tribes, armed groups, and the government in fighting the AlQaeda organizations. (Sorry for a missing link here. The latest I cited was here, but there has been at least another item along the same lines in Al-Hayat since then). Some of this at least is undoubtedly wishful thinking, but it is worth underlining the fact that from Al-Hayat's Sunni perspective, it makes sense to talk about cooperation between some armed groups and the Maliki administration, at least in this tactical way. I don't think anyone knows the relative strength, within the resistance, of the AlQaeda affiliated international jihadis on the one side, and the domestic nationalist resistance on the other. But the point here is merely that Al-Hayat, for its part, sees the threat from AlQaeda as having triggered talk of government cooperation with some of the domestic groups. Whether this will prove to be at all meaningful remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Condoleeza Rice met in Aswan on the weekend, not only with the foreign ministers of the so-called "Arab quartet" (Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and UAE), but also, separately, with the heads of the Mukhabarat (national-security/intelligence) of those countries, including Omar Suleiman of Egypt and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. (She had a similar meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs in Amman last month.) The Aswan meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs wasn't elaborated on in any of the Western accounts, but Abdulbari Atwan, writing in Al-Quds al-Arabi, explained that for instance in Egypt, the foreign minister handles things like economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, while the Palestinian file is in the hands of Suleiman, and the same in Saudi Arabia, where Bandar is the person in charge of the Lebanon and Iran files. Atwan, who is well-connected, didn't say specifically what was talked about in those Rice-Mukhabarat meetings, suggesting he doesn't know. Did they talk about Iraq?

His overall point is that the Rice verbiage about "horizons" and "active diplomacy" and so on, refer to US pressure to get the Arab states to water down their 2002 Israel-Palestine peace proposal by dropping the Palestinian "right of return" and by front-ending Arab recognition of Israel. In today's column, Atwan calls attention to Thomas Friedman's Saturday op-ed in the NYT (recommending the Saudi King re-launch the peace initiative with a surprise visit to Israel and Palestine right after the Riyadh summit) as another piece of this scheme for a watered-down peace-proposal with front-ended recognition of Israel. Atwan said he regrets to have to say it, but the fact is Friedman is not just blowing bubbles; the King might actually do it. After all, he notes, the original 2002 proposal involved collusion between Friedman and the King, so this might be the same type of thing.