Iran confirms Iraqi visit, makes no mention of Baghdad claim Tehran arming Shiite militias
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday confirmed that an Iraqi delegation was visiting the country but made no mention that it sought to step up pressure on Iran to stop arming and training Iraq's Shiite extremists - a claim backed by Washington but denied by Tehran.

The official IRNA news agency said the Iraqis were here to discuss "security issues" related to clashes between Shiite extremists and the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. It quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying that the five-member Iraqi team was to "discuss latest developments" in Iraq.

"Iranian officials will hold talks with this delegation in line with helping settle differences and ongoing clashes in Iraq," Hosseini said.

Senior Shiite Iraqi politicians from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance arrived Wednesday to confront Iranian authorities with what Baghdad officials described as "sufficient evidence" of Iran's support for Iraq's militias and outlaws.

On Thursday, they met with the commander of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps that has been accused of training and funneling weapons to the Shiite extremists in Iraq. A second meeting with the commander, Ghassem Soleimani, was expected Friday.

The Quds Force is believed to operate overseas, and is said to have helped create the militant Hezbollah group in 1982 in Lebanon and armed Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The Iraqi delegation reportedly has documents and other material implicating the Quds Force in supplying weapons and training fighters. U.S. military officials have said the evidence includes caches of weapons that have date stamps showing they were produced in Iran this year - including mortars, rockets and armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs.

The Iraqis reportedly also requested to meet with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but it was not clear if the meeting would take place.

The visit comes as the Bush administration is raising its anti- Iran rhetoric as American troops find themselves facing daily clashes with Shiite militiamen. The combat helped push the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to at least 50 in April, the highest monthly toll since 65 were killed in September.

Hosseini said Iran supports its neighbor's stability and that hosting the delegation from Baghdad was "in line with the goal ... of providing stability and security in Iraq."

He in turn blamed Washington for the violence in Iraq, saying Iraq's "main problem is the presence of occupiers and terrorists." Iran has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Iraq, saying their presence is the root cause of instability there.

Iran demonstrated its growing influence in Iraq in March, when it helped broker an end to a bout of fighting between U.S. and Iraqi forces on one side and members of the Shiite Mahdi Army loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on the other.

Al-Sadr ordered his fighters off the streets on March 30. But the truce left the group intact and armed, and did not address its long-term threat to Iraq's stability.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki's Shiite-dominated government faces a delicate balance as it needs to maintain a relationship with its U.S. backers and neighboring Iran, a predominantly Shiite nation that has close ties to Iraq's leaders.

But al-Maliki has shown a recent willingness to crackdown on Shiite militias led by the Mahdi Army as he seeks to gain political support from rival Shiite groups and minority Sunnis. He has also threatened to politically isolate al-Sadr if he doesn't disband the Mahdi Army. Al-Sadr is believed to be in Iran, but the Iraqi delegation has no plans to meet him.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that the Iraqi visit was "a very important step" and that it may prompt Iranians choose whether they "want to work with the government of Iraq or subvert" it.