Iran Warns U.S. on More Attacks
Friday, November 30, 2001
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Iran's foreign minister cautioned the United States against striking militarily beyond Afghanistan in the fight against terror, saying Friday the Islamic world would oppose attacks against Muslim nations.
"There is no excuse to justify any military operation against any Islamic country," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told a news conference in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
The statement came amid growing concerns among Muslim countries that after its fight in Afghanistan was over, Washington might attack Saddan Hussein's regime in Iraq or another Islamic nation accused of supporting of terrorism.
"If any country ... attacks another country just with allegations, this would be a chaos," Kharrazi said. "Nobody in the Islamic world or outside the Islamic world would accept this."
Shiite Muslim Iran is a staunch opponent of Afghanistan's mainly Sunni Muslim Taliban and waged a bitter war against Iraq in the 1980s.
It supports the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. But, unlike some other countries in the region, it has not opened its military bases or airspace to U.S. forces operating in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said the United States had made no sign that it would strike militarily at other countries. Even so, he said that "terrorism cannot be equated with Islam."
The ministers from Pakistan and Iran said they supported U.N.-sponsored talks now being held in Germany with rival Afghan factions to promote a broad-based, multiethnic government.
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