Presenter: let’s talk now to Masoud Zabeti, who is the president of the Committee of Anglo-Iranian Lawyers. Thanks for your time here on Sky News this evening. Do you think there is any mood for optimism; the fact that these talks, as difficult as they may be, are beginning to take place.
Masoud Zabeti: I don’t think so to be honest. One has to look at the nature of the Iranian regime. Asking the Iranian regime to assist in terms of the security situation in Iraq is like asking a serial arsonist who has just set fire to a building to help put the fire out. I mean the Iranian regime is the main threat to Iraq’s stability, and peace and security there. I can give you facts and details, I mean, that have come out throughout the last few years in terms of its arming, its funding of terrorist groups and Shia militia in Iraq who are responsible for widespread killings in Iraq and also of course the import into Iraq of Improvised Explosive Devices, killing British troops and American personnel.
Presenter: And yet as Tim Marshal was telling us in the last few hours perhaps we need to look at the fact that this is shrouding the fact that the United States and Iran are now talking albeit through intermediaries, it would seem through this. If we are to make any sort of stability in that region, surely you need Iran to be involved rather than excluded.
Masoud Zabeti: Well, assuming that Iran was interested in stability and security in Iraq which it has proven over the last three years that it is not. It has been fomenting all the unrest in Iraq because ultimately it has made its position clear today it wants the Coalition troops out of Iraq so it can dominate Iraq and turn it into another Islamic state over which it has control and in that way attempt to dominate the region. Just a few weeks ago, the Iranian opposition NCRI revealed the details of 32,000 paid Iranian agents of the Iranian regime who are working across Iraq – all the details of their bank accounts, how much they’re receiving, and all the rest of it. So, the Iranian regime has put enormous amount of resources in Iraq and as soon as it gets rid of the Coalition, I am afraid it will want to dominate the country.
Presenter: As the international community is looking at bringing stability not only to Iraq but to the whole region; what would be the consequences if Iran was left out of that equation?
Masoud Zabeti: Let’s look at the nuclear issue as another situation in which talks took place with Iran. For four years, Jack Straw and others said talks with Iran were going to dissuade them from their nuclear path and in fact that it was going to encourage the moderates. What we have now; Iran is 18 months to two years away from its first nuclear bomb and also we have Ahmadinejad who is the most radical person you can imagine in Iran. Resolving the situation in Iraq will require a resolution to the situation in Iran and in order to do that what the West should be doing is actually supporting Iranians and the Iranian opposition NCRI. Only yesterday, 30,000 Iranians gathered in Brussels to call for freedom and democracy in Iran. And the leader of the Iranian opposition lady Mrs Maryam Rajavi, she has warned that in fact the situation in Iraq and Iran’s attempts to take over Iraq is much more dangerous than its nuclear threats.
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