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Wednesday, April 24, 2024  
15 Shawwal 1445  

Iran slams US military strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan

Iran slams US military strategy in Iraq, AfghanistanIran on Friday slammed Washington's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and called for a revision of strategies in the region to avert further bloodshed.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said he had discussed Washington's handling of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan with Indian leaders during a two-day visit that ended on Friday.
"The two parties (India and Iran) are not pleased that Afghanistan and Iraq continue to suffer uncertainty and instability," Mottaki told reporters.
"A fundamental formula must be found to deal with these problems... as we see it a number of wrong policies have been implemented (that) need to be addressed," Mottaki said.
US President George W. Bush has come under fire for Washington's Iraq strategy since the invasion in 2003, with sectarian violence between the majority Sunnis and majority Shias claiming thousands of lives.
In October, the prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, published a study estimating that 650,000 people had died in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006, 600,000 of them violently.
Bush has acknowledged that the problems in Iraq played a major role in the opposition Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994 in polls last week and sacked his defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Washington has accused Tehran of meddling in Iraq, charges it vehemently denies.
But there has been speculation that a US Congressionally mandated panel charged with coming up with a new approach to Iraq would endorse contacts with Iran and Syria on ending violence in Iraq.
Washington's policies in Afghanistan are also being questioned as a resurgent Taliban launches attacks on the International Security Assistance Force based there.
Taliban militants are using several tactics -- including suicide bombings -- in their insurgency, with most of the violence targeted at Afghan and foreign troops and civilians who work with them or the government.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006

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