BAGHDAD, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Iraq on Thursday denied a
Western intelligence report that said Iranian aircraft had flown
weapons and military personnel over Iraqi airspace to Syria to
help President Bashar al-Assad battle an 18-month-old uprising.
The allegation, reported by Reuters on Wednesday, said arms
transfers were organised by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps.
Although charges that Iraq has allowed Iran to send arms to
Syria are not new, the report said the extent of such shipments
is far greater and more systematic than has been publicly
acknowledged, thanks to a deal between senior Iraqi and Iranian
officials.
The report also said Iran was dispatching trucks overland
via Iraq westwards to Syria.
"Iraq has confirmed that it will never be involved or
helping or allowing any shipment via its air space or land to
Syria," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters.
He said Iraq was "ready to be part of regional and
international efforts or measures to stop the shipping of
equipment or personnel to both sides in Syria".
Syria's upheaval is politically tricky for Iraq's Shi'ite
Muslim-led government. Close to Assad's ally, Shi'ite Iran,
Baghdad has resisted joining Western and fellow Arab calls for
the Syrian leader to step down while also calling for a reform
process in Syria.
Iraqi leaders fear Assad's fall would fracture Syria along
sectarian lines and yield a hostile, hardline Sunni Muslim
regime that could stir up Iraq's volatile Sunni-Shi'ite mix.
Baghdad has reinforced key points along its 680-km
(420-mile) desert border with Syria.
U.S. officials said earlier this month they were questioning
Iraq about Iranian flights in Iraqi air space. On Wednesday,
U.S. Senator John Kerry threatened to review U.S. aid to Baghdad
if it does not halt such overflights to Syria.
"The official spokesman of the Iraqi government has denied
that issue altogether. There is nothing like this happening,"
Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamal, Iraq's deputy interior
minister for intelligence, told Reuters on Thursday.
The accusation was also made by Iraq's fugitive vice
president. "My country is unfortunately becoming an Iranian
corridor to support the autocratic regime of Bashar al-Assad,
there is no doubt about that," Tareq al-Hashemi told Reuters in
an interview in Istanbul on Sunday.
"It is not only the air space. It is thousands of (Iraqi)
militia now inside Syria, supporting Bashar al-Assad and killing
Syrian innocent people," he said, citing reports he had received
from Iraq's Anbar province, which borders Syria, and from
members of the Syrian opposition.
Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim and harsh critic of Shi'ite Iraqi
Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki, fled Iraq in December and was
sentenced to death by a Baghdad court earlier this month on
charges that he ran death squads. He has denied this.