Iraqi opposition leader rules out a Baghdad-Tehran-Damascus alliance
Iraq-Syria, Politics, 7/1/1997

Iraq's government will never persuade Syria and Iran to enter an alliance that could help Baghdad ease its year of international isolation, an Iraqi opposition leader said.
While the idea has popular support in all three countries, "It lacks credibility and is not realistic with the ruling regime still present in Iraq," said Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
In recent weeks, Iraq and some Arab commentators have floated the idea of an alliance among the three countries to confront growing military cooperation between Turkey and Israel.
The idea gained favor after Syria and Iraq reopened their border, closed since 1982, this month. Later, an Iranian envoy made a rare visit to Iraq to invite President Saddam Hussien to an Islamic summit in Tehran in December.
But Hakim, whose group serves as an umbrella for several Shiite groups opposed to Saddam, dismissed the idea.
"Tehran and Damascus have no faith in the Iraqi regime, which deals with this issue only as a tactic," he said in an interview from Tehran published on June 29.
In Baghdad on June 28 the Babel newspaper, owned by Saddam Hussien's son Odai, repeated its call for the alliance. "What has happened among Iraq, Syria and Iran over the past few days is a positive move and its development is a must."
Hakim also accused Israel of sending officers and experts to northern Iraq to help Turkey establish and occupy a buffer zone similar to the one Israel has set up in southern Lebanon.
Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed autonomy in northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War under western protection, but they have been plagued by infighting. Adding to the strife is the use of northern Iraq as a base by Turkish Kurds fighting for autonomy in Turkey. One of the Iraqi Kurdish groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, denied plans to set up a buffer zone and that Israel or any other country had taken part in the operation.

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