[NYTr] Iran calls on Muslims to boycott US-sponsored conference

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Oct 13, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSHAF33230320071013?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Iran calls on Muslims to boycott peace conference

By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top cleric urged Muslim countries on Saturday
to boycott a U.S.-sponsored international peace conference on
Palestinian statehood next month.

Opposition to Israel is one of the cornerstones of belief of Shi'ite
Iran, which backs Palestinian and Lebanese Islamic militant groups
opposed to peace with the Jewish state.

"When Palestinians consider this conference as deceitful and refuse to
participate, how can Muslim countries take part in that?" Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a sermon broadcast live on state
media.

"Other (Muslim) countries also should consider it a deceitful
conference."

The United States is optimistic Palestinians and Israelis will agree to
a joint document on the tough issues that divide them before the
conference in November.

Washington has backed the idea of a small territorial exchange between
Israel and a future Palestine so that Palestinians would be compensated
for Jewish settlement blocs that would remain under Israeli control in
any peace deal.

Negotiations on core issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state
and the future of Jerusalem and millions of Palestinian refugees broke
down in 2001 amid surging violence.

Since its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran refuses to recognize Israel.

"Under the name of seizing peace, Americans are trying to impose their
will on Palestinians. This conference's aim is to rescue the Zionist
regime (Israel)," Khamenei said. .

Iran's most powerful authority also said the United States and its
western allies were to be blamed for instability and the bloodshed in
Iraq.

"The occupiers of Iraq are the ones to be blamed for the insecurity in
Iraq. They are not capable or they do not want to establish security in
Iraq," he said.

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of "interference" in Iraq,
through backing Shi'ite militias, and of sponsoring terrorism,
including the Palestinian group Hamas and Hezbollah. Tehran denies the
charges.

The United States and Iran, who have not had diplomatic ties since
shortly after Iran's revolution, are also embroiled in a deepening rift
over Tehran's nuclear program, which the West says is a cover to build
nuclear weapons. Iran denies it.

Khamenei, the spiritual heir of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
who led Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, addressed tens of thousands of
worshippers who gathered at a large mosque in Tehran to mark the Muslim
Eid al-Fitr holiday ending the Ramadan fasting month in Iran.

"America and its allies are responsible for ... human and political
catastrophe in Iraq," he said.