Iranian says conflict flows from Iraq

BAGHDAD -- A ranking Iranian diplomat said yesterday the chaos of Iraq is spilling over into his country, spreading a destabilizing influence to its Arab population.

The assertion by Mohammad Reza Baghban, the Iranian consul in the southern city of Basra, runs counter to the Bush administration analysis that violence and instability flow in the opposite direction -- from Tehran to Baghdad.

"If you take a look at the discoveries of the Iranian police, you will find arms, ammunitions, and other illegal equipment smuggled from Iraq to Khuzestan and other Iranian provinces," Baghban said in a rare interview.

Khuzestan is an oil-rich Arab province in mostly Persian Iran that over the past few years has experienced outbreaks of violence by suspected separatists.

Allegations that arms flow from Iran into Iraq are unsubstantiated, despite a strong presence of British and US troops in the border region of southern Iraq, Baghban added.

"The Americans are used to speaking nonsense, and none of their allegations are documented," Baghban said. "Can they offer any evidence of what they say?"

Baghban said US and British troops stationed at the Mehran and Shalamcheh border outposts have had ample opportunity to monitor the frontier between Iran and southern Iraq, which is dominated by Shi'ite militias and political parties with roots in Iran.

Iran and the United States have been locked in a decades-long cold war that has heated up recently over allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq as well as Tehran's nuclear ambitions. US troops last month stormed an Iranian government office in the northern city of Irbil, arresting half a dozen officials on suspicion of aiding armed groups. Five remain in custody.