Mosul residents huffy over Rafsanjani’s recent visit to Iraq

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: A recent visit paid by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chief of Iran’s Expediency Council, to Iraq was met with discontent by a large number of local residents of Mosul although their city was not on Rafsanjani’s agenda. Several people in Mosul told IraqiNews.com news agency that they reject the visit now that Rafsanjani was one of the officials during the Iraq-Iran war during the 1980s. “We have fought for eight years so that strangers would not tread on the lands of Iraq against our well and to fend off any attempts for foreign interference in our own affairs,” Alaa Jirjees, 55, a retired officer, told IraqiNews.com. “Today, we see those who have always had ambitions in Iraq get presidential and official reception. This is totally rejected,” he said. Jirjees pointed out that that the Iranian interference in Iraq’s internal affairs have been and still clear as far as igniting violence, particularly sectarian violence, all over Iraq is concerned. “In addition to this, there are Iranian excesses on territorial waters in Shatt al-Arab and the Gulf and the recent seizure of the island of Umm al-Rassas and the port of Khour al-Ammiya. The blood of thousands of Iraqis has run in rivers in order to preserve these areas and resist their occupation by the Iranian regime,” he noted. Shatt al Arab, river, southeastern Iraq, formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is 193 km (120 mi) long and empties into the Gulf. The lower part of its course forms the boundary between Iraq and Iran. Iraqi press reports have spoken during the past couple of days about Iranian forces’ occupation of Umm al-Rassas island, overlooking Shatt al-Arab, east of the province of Basra, 590 km south of Baghdad, and the southern Iraq port of Khour al-Ammiya. Iraqi military source, however, dismissed the reports. “The exaggerated welcome Rafsanjani has received from senior (Iraqi) officials does not express the Iraqi people’s opinion or feelings towards that man that has been one of the most prominent Iranian military official during the war and one of the officials responsible for torturing Iraqi prisoners of war in Iranian detention centers,” said an angry Jirjees. Rafsanjani had arrived in Baghdad on Monday (March 2) on a five-day official visit at the invitation of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Rafsanjani met with several senior Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Umm Sami, a 74-year-old woman resident of Mosul, told IraqiNews.com that she has lost all hope that her son, captive in Iran since 1984, particularly after she received news of his death of torture in prison. “How come a person accused of killing and torturing our sons should be received in Iraq? And why don’t the officials care about the feelings of many Iraqis,” said a lamenting Umm Sami. Rafsanjani’s visit has raised hubbub in the Iraqi political circles, particularly after Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, the leader of the (Sunni) Iraqi Islamic Party (IPP), one of the key components of the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF) bloc, declined to meet the Iranian official despite the latter’s wish to meet Hashemi. The IIP has issued a statement in which it said that Rafsanjani’s visit was not welcome, urging the Iraqi government to tackle the issue of Iranian interference that almost dragged Iraq to a civil war. Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa province, 405 km north of Baghdad, is considered one of the Iraqi provinces that lost the largest number of soldiers during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war that claimed that lives of nearly one million people on either side and caused financial losses estimated at $1.9 trillion. AmR (I) 1