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| Leaked Iranian letter warned U.S. that Syrian rebels have chemical weapons: Christian Science Monitor |
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TEHRAN – According to leaked diplomatic correspondence, Iran has been warning Washington since July 2012 that the rebels fighting against the Syrian government have acquired chemical weapons, and called on the U.S. to send “an immediate and serious warning” to rebel groups not to use them, the Christian Science Monitor reported on Monday.
As a primary backer of the Syrian government, Iran has argued vehemently against U.S. airstrikes, warned that sectarian “fire” will spread, and that the rebels have been behind the August 21 chemical weapons attack that U.S. officials say killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
In a letter acquired by the Christian Science Monitor that was sent sometime in the spring, Iran told American officials that, as a “supporter” of the rebels, the U.S. would be held responsible for any rebel use of chemical weapons.
Iran amplified those year-old warnings over the weekend in its strongest public comments to date linking the rebels with chemical weapons, echoing Russia’s dismissal of American assurances that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were to blame. The comments come as the U.S. Congress prepares to vote on military strikes.
“There is ample intelligence that takfiri [extremist] groups are in possession of chemical arms,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday during a visit to Iraq, according to Press TV.
Iran says that it warned the United States directly, in mid- and late- 2012, and at least once after that, about the risks of chemical weapons among the rebels. The letter acquired by the Monitor references messages from July 18 and December 1, 2012.
According to the English translation that accompanies the one-page Persian document, the letter reads, “Alerting [worrying] news has been published about the preparations of insurgent forces in Syria for using chemical weapons/elements.”
Iran “holds responsible, in addition to the elements of violent forces, their supporter countries including the American government, for any resort to chemical weapons/elements by those insurgent forces,” it states.
The Iranian letter is undated and was produced by the previous government under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to informed sources in Iran who provided a copy to the Monitor on the condition that they not be further identified.
A U.S. State Department official would not verify the authenticity of the letter as a matter of policy, stating, “We don’t comment on diplomatic correspondence.”
Neither the Persian and English versions of the letter seen by the Monitor have any official letterhead or other identifying marks.
Since the August 21 attack, Iranian officials have repeatedly stated their opposition to chemical weapons use by any side – a policy that has been consistent since Iran was targeted by chemical munitions repeated in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Mr. Zarif first revealed that Iran had sent direct warnings to the U.S. via the Swiss Embassy in Tehran in an interview published September 1 by Aseman weekly in Tehran. The Swiss have handled U.S. interests in Iran throughout the 34-year U.S.-Iran estrangement, and have been a conduit for such messages in the past.
Zarif said in the interview that Iran sent a memo to the U.S. last December stating that “handmade articles of chemical weapons, including sarin gas, are being transferred into Syria.” He added, “In the same note, we warned [Washington] that radical groups might be planning to use these chemical agents.”
Zarif said the U.S. never responded to the letter.
The document seen by the Monitor appears to be a third letter, which recalls the “messages” of the two previous letters, but does not mention any specific details about the types of chemical weapons that might be in rebel hands, or where they came from. Nor does it mention what information, intelligence, or “published” news may have prompted the Iranians to write it.
Instead, it refers to two well-known incidents of chemical weapons use by Iraqi forces, the mustard gas attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht in 1987, and the gassing of the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 – both of which the letter says Iran holds “Western countries” accountable for by backing Saddam Hussein in the war, and drawing a parallel with Western-backed rebel forces today.
The Iranian letter states, “Precedence and recent experiences of Syrian crises shows that, the violent forces [groups], emboldened by assurances of comprehensive political and military support given by some countries including the U.S., have so far applied no limitation in violence or brutal crimes against innocent people.”
The letter adds that Iran “will not spare any effort” to find a “peaceful solution.” Iran “would like to urge the U.S. government to prevent any undermining [of] the non-proliferation of WMDs” and avoid “a potential human tragedy” by “sending an immediate and serious warning to the insurgent forces in Syria about any resort to chemical weapons/elements.”
AM/PA
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