Iran Will Not Allow Iraq Disintegration

A top advisor to the Leader of Islamic Revolution on international affairs reiterated that Iran’s advisory role in neighboring Iraq is aimed at averting a disintegration of the war-ravaged Arab country.

“We oppose any move likely to lead to the disintegration of regional countries and will confront it because it would not be in the region’s interest … Shias, Sunnis and Kurds have coexisted in Iraq for centuries,” Ali Akbar Velayati was quoted as saying by IRNA on Tuesday.

Iran has provided advisory help to Baghdad’s government in its war against the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group that swept through large swathes of northern and western Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014.

About a year ago, the then US Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno said the only way to resolve the Iraqi crisis is probably division of the country into separate administrative regions.

“I think [Iraq’s reconciliation] is becoming more difficult by the day and I think there might be some alternative solutions that might come sometime in the future, where Iraq might not look like what it did in the past,” Odierno said.

“[Partition] is something that could happen and might be the only solution, but I am not ready to say that.”