Kerry Presses Iraq on Iran Flights to Syria

            On March 24, Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Iraq to inspect Iranian cargo flights for arms. Iranian flights are “helping to sustain” the Syrian regime, Kerry claimed during a previously unannounced visit to Baghdad. The United States suspects that Tehran is using the flights to supply arms to Bashar al Assad’s forces. But Iraqi officials have claimed that the planes only carry humanitarian supplies. Abbas al-Bayati, a member of parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, said Iraq has not found weapons during its random inspections of Iranian planes, according to Reuters.

            In March 2012, State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters that the United States was “concerned” about Iranian cargo flights. But the issue remains unresolved one year later. Secretary Kerry warned Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki that some members of Congress are increasingly monitoring Iraqi behavior. They are wondering how Iraq can be “doing something that makes it more difficult” to achieve shared Iraqi-U.S. goals in Syria. The following are excerpts from Kerry’s remarks to the press.
 
            …Iraq’s success will take enormous cooperation. It’ll take dialogue and it’ll take courage. It’ll require the resolve to defend the sovereignty of the country and its airspace. It will take a commitment to being a good neighbor in a difficult neighborhood. And as Iraqi leaders make difficult decisions in these areas, we are going to work to try to help them succeed….
 
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what you told Prime Minister Maliki about the flow of Iranian arms through Iraq into Syria, and what specific commitment you got from him to try to start doing something about that?
 
SECRETARY KERRY: We had a very spirited discussion on the subject of the overflights. And I made it very clear that for those of us who are engaged in an effort to see President Assad step down and to see a democratic process take hold with a transitional government according to the Geneva Communiqué, for those of us engaged in that effort, anything that supports President Assad is problematic. And I made it very clear to the Prime Minister that the overflights from Iran are, in fact, helping to sustain President Assad and his regime.
 
So we agreed to try to provide more information with respect to this, but I also made it clear to him that there are members of Congress and people in America who increasingly are watching what Iraq is doing and wondering how it is that a partner in the efforts for democracy and a partner for whom Americans feel they have tried so hard to be helpful – how that country can be, in fact, doing something that makes it more difficult to achieve our common goals, the goal expressed by the Prime Minister with respect to Syria and President Assad.
 
So my hope is that we’ll be able to make some progress on this, and I’m taking some homework back to Washington with me, and I think the Prime Minister will have discussions here...
 
Click here for the full transcript.