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Iran on Monday said that it is at neighbor Iraq’s disposal if it needs help in battling extremist group Islamic State. Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri expressed his show of support after meeting with Iraqi counterpart and former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Tehran.
“In the face of terrorism, we must use all means… Iran is ready to place all of its abilities at Iraq’s disposal” Iranian state broadcaster IRIB’s website reported Jahangiri saying. To help counter the IS offensive in Iraq, Iran has already supplied Iraqi Kurds with arms and sent its military advisers to Baghdad; curiously, it has denied that it deployed ground troops in Iraq.
However, last month, Iranian television broadcasted a rare picture of the elite Quds Force chief and Major General Qassem Suleimani in Iraq standing alongside the Kurdish peshmerga. In September, senior Iranian military official had threatened to attack the IS deep inside Iraq if they approached the Iran-Iraq border.
Iran had refused to join the global coalition formed to combat the group, and advocates regional support for Syrian and Iraqi government. Tehran has also said that air strikes are not sufficient to combat the group.
On Monday, Jahangiri dismissed the coalition’s strikes as a “show”, criticizing the campaign for not taking “concrete measures to dry up financial supplies” to the militants.
Maliki had said that “wider cooperation and coordination are needed to prevent greater dangers” that lie ahead. The former Prime Minister had stepped down last August after a protracted political crisis. Maliki, who was succeeded by Haidar al-Abadi, also met Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the trip.
Khamenei praised Maliki’s “courage” during his eight years in power, saying that the decision to step down also helped prevent instability in Iraq.
Abadi had also visited Tehran in October to discuss Iraq’s battle against the IS. The pre-dominantly Shi’ite neighbors have had close diplomatic ties since the ousting of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein during the US-led invasion of 2003.
