Dubai, Dec 01: Iran today took a dig at President George W Bush`s 'Thanksgiving' visit to Baghdad and questioned the us leader's need for secrecy if he indeed "claimed to be Iraq's liberator". "Why this secret nocturnal thanksgiving visit to Baghdad? If he (Bush) claims to be Iraq`s liberator, he must have arranged a magnanimous travel to have the Iraqi people to welcome him," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in Tehran yesterday.
"America has failed in Iraq, both in guaranteeing security and other issues. It is now up to the American people to ask their rulers where America stands and why the country`s President cannot travel even to a friendly country," the official Iranian news agency Irna quoted Asefi as saying.
Tehran, which is facing harsh criticism from the Bush administration for allegedly manufacturing weapons grade uranium for nuclear weapons had recently agreed to a protocol providing for stricter monitoring of its nuclear programme.
Asked about Kazakhstan`s intention to deploy military force in the Caspian Sea, he said, "Kazakhs have announced that they will have such presence within their own maritime waters and this has nothing to do with the whole sea and dispatch of military forces.
Bureau Report