WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department
said on Thursday it did not support a suggestion from a
prominent senator that future U.S. assistance to Iraq be made
conditional on Baghdad's cooperation in stopping Iranian
aircraft suspected of ferrying weapons to Syria.
"We've been very clear about our ongoing conversation with
the government of Iraq, and our view that they either need to
deny overflight requests for Iranian aircraft going to Syria or
to require that such flights land in Iraqi territory for
inspection," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a
news briefing.
"We do not support linking U.S. assistance to Iraq to the
issue of Iranian overflights precisely because our assistance is
in part directed towards robust security assistance including
helping the Iraqis build their capability to defend their
airspace."
Senator John Kerry, the Democrat who heads the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, suggested on Wednesday that Baghdad
should be warned that U.S. assistance could be reviewed if it
did not take a firmer line on Iranian overflights.
Iraq on Thursday denied a Western intelligence report that
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 organized by the elite Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps.
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.
Nuland repeated that the United States wanted to see
"maximum vigilance" by Iraq, noting that all countries were
obligated by U.N. Security Council resolutions to block Iranian
arms sales.
"Iran will stop at nothing to try to help prop up the Assad
regime, so we are asking for vigilance and giving advice on how
that can be best applied," she said.
(Reporting By Andrew Quinn. Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter
Cooney)