Iraq Admits That It Cannot Stop Iran From Using It's Airspace To Transfer Arms To Syria

Iraq Says It Can’t Halt Arms To Syria -- New York Times/Reuters

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Iraq is unable to stop its neighbor Iran from transferring weapons to Syria through its airspace, Iraq’s foreign minister said in a newspaper interview published Saturday.

“We reject and condemn the transfer of weapons through our airspace, and we will inform the Iranian side of that formally,” Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat. “But we do not have the ability to stop it.”

Iran supports President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who is fighting a mainly Sunni opposition in a civil war that has killed at least 93,000 people, according to the United Nations.

The United States, which wants Mr. Assad to give up power, has warned Iraq not to allow Iranian weapons flights to cross its airspace into Syria. But Mr. Zebari said he had told Western countries that if they wanted to stop such flights, they had to help do so themselves.

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My Comment: This is a rare admission from the Iraqi government .... that they do not control their airspace. And while Iraq's Shiite government does favor the Assad regime in Syria .... it must still be frustrating that they are largely irrelevant in exercising authority over their territory.