Tension over Iran must not embroil Iraq, says Chalabi

"Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi deputy prime minister, has said Iraq must play the role of regional peacemaker if it is not to fall victim to soured Iranian relations with the US and Britain.

Baghdad could not "sit idly by while other people fight on our territory", he told the FT in an interview.

Mr Chalabi, who ended yesterday a three-day visit to Tehran, said Iran had agreed to study his proposal for a tripartite inquiry - with British, Iranian and Iraqi representatives - into last month's flare-up in Basra: British troops attacked a police station to free two special forces soldiers arrested while disguised as Arabs in a car said to be packed with explosives and weapons. Tension in southern Iraq was heightened, he said, by British allegations of Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents and Iranian allegations of British backing for militant Arab separatists in south-west Iran."
FT.com