Madam, - Your edition of February 23rd carried a report by Michael Jansen headed, "Shia group choose Jaafari as choice for prime minister". Considering the content of the article about Iran's support for Al-Dawa Party and the factors precipitating Iraq's eight-year war against Iran, I deem it necessary to make the following clarifications:
1. The influence of the Islamic Revolution on other nations, especially Muslim neighbouring countries, has no relation to the political will of the Revolution's leaders to export its ideology. It is in the nature of all other great historical revolutions, including the French Revolution.
2. It is unlikely that, by any standard, granting refuge to a number of oppressed people of Iraq who had suffered a lot under the aggressive regime of Saddam deserves rebuke or reproach.
3 The reasons for the Iraqi war against Iran have been clear to the élite from the very beginning and today, are obvious even to the public. Besides, the United Nations officially asserted Saddam as the initiator of the war.
Ms Jansen's statement that, among other things, "Iranian cross-border shelling precipitated the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict" is not true. Iran has never initiated nor precipitated a war that cost hundreds of thousands of precious lives and billions of damage.
4. The Islamic Republic of Iran respects the democratic trends in Iraq and supports the principles of independence, territorial integrity and non-interference of foreign countries in its internal affairs. - Yours, etc.,
SOUDABEH BAHREINI, Cultural and Press Officer, Iran Embassy, Dublin.