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http://www.irna.com/en/world/020723141033.ewo.shtml Islamic Republic News Agency July 24, 2002 Implications of US intervention in Afghanistan: report -On the Taliban, she said that this group was formed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US to diminish Iran's role in Afghanistan. The other aim was to monopolize the oil and gas route from Central Asia and to exclude Iran from the route, she said. New Delhi, July 23, IRNA -- Iran's strategic location and its focus on West Asia and Middle East are the reasons why the US wants to isolate this country more than ever before and expand its military presence around it, said an eminent professor in a seminar. Prof. Gulshan Deitl of the Centre of West Asian Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, while presenting a paper entitled `The Iranian View of Development in Afghanistan' in a day-long seminar on "The Geo-Political and Socio-Economic Implications of the US Involvement in Afghanistan" said on Monday. According to an IRNA correspondent, Professor Gulshan said that although Iran lies in a secluded corner in West Asia, due to its strategic location in the world map the US that is being haunted by its old animosity against Iran and is therefore trying to exclude it from the business of supplying energy resources out of Central Asia to Europe by propping the BCT--Baku (Azerbaijan), Cehan (Turkey) and Tiblisi (Georgia) pipeline project. Outlining the contours of US policy in the Middle East, Gulshan Deitl, in the seminar which was organized by the Academy of Third World Studies of Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, said that during the Persian Gulf War in 1990, the US rallied 30 countries around Kuwait and against Iraq. At that time, he said, Iran because of the losses it sustained from the war imposed on it by Baghdad, did not oppose the US war against Iraq. But, after the war, Washington declared a new venom in its Middle East policy by propounding the doctrine of `Dual Containment' to contain Iran and Iraq, she added. On Iran-Afghanistan relations, she said that during Afghanistan's occupation by the former USSR, Iran, because of its close cultural and linguistic links, became the land Afghans easily turned to for refuge. However, she added, when the Taliban invaded Afghanistan, they converted it into a center of the narcotics and drug trade that flowed into Iran and blocked the flow of water from Hilmand river into Hamun lake. Moreover, she said, the Taliban, after capturing Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, killed one Iranian journalist and several diplomats as a result of which relations between Iran and the Taliban regime went bitter, she said. On the Taliban, she said that this group was formed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US to diminish Iran's role in Afghanistan. The other aim was to monopolize the oil and gas route from Central Asia and to exclude Iran from the route, she said. In such a situation, Iran was on the verge of declaring war against the Taliban but Iranian leaders, with their political erudition, avoided war, said Prof. Gulshan Deitl. It is surprising that it was the US which finally attacked the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, he pointed out. At this time, "Iran unlike during the Persian Gulf War, supported US military actions against the Taliban," she said. This time around Iran gave a positive reaction to the US military action and offered help to American soldiers if their plane crashes within Iranian territory during the war with the Taliban, she said. Also, after the fall of the Taliban, Iran played a positive role in the Bonn Conference which led to the formation of the Afghan interim government, she said, adding that George W. Bush, instead of appreciating the goodwill measures of Iran, declared Tehran as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Korea. After declaring the doctrine of `Dual Containment' in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War and accusing Iran of being part of an "axis of evil" after the fall of Taliban, the US is now trying to expand its military presence around Iran, she said. Under such circumstances Iran, which maintains an anti-drug trafficking, anti-Taliban and anti-terrorism stance, should be cautious in its dealings with countries in the region, she advised. In the seminar, other speakers also pointed out the threat of US interventionist designs in the region and vowed to draw regional actors to play a positive role in regional stability. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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