TEHRAN, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi on Monday accused the Iraqi government of offering the biggest service to Israel by invading Kuwait in 1990 and starting a war with Iran in 1980.
Asefi said Israel benefited most from both wars while the Iraqi government only provoked discord and disputes among the Arab and Islamic countries by invading Kuwait.
His remarks were in response to Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who strongly lashed at Iran over the weekend, charging that the "Persians have always been the allies of Zionists" and "of having ambitions in the Arab world like the Zionists."
Ramadan said Iran refuses to return Iraqi civil planes flown to Iran for shelter during the 1991 Gulf War and reminded that Tehran encouraged the Shiites in southern Iraq for rebellion shortly afterward.
Iran's official al-Wifak newspaper said Ramadan's accusations were an attempt to please the United States and said the Baghdad government was mistaken if it thinks that it could bargain U.S. enmity with a new enmity toward Tehran.
In Beirut, Iran's Assistant Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Sadr said his country was surprised of the new Iraqi position. Speaking after a meeting with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on Monday, al-Sadr said such Iraqi comments were in "no one's interest."
