IRAN: Iran has angrily rejected United States allegations of interference in Iraq, warning its troops not to cross into Iran and voicing alarm over a deal between the US military and the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen opposition group.
Iran's Foreign Minister, Mr Kamal Kharrazi, said US forces patrolling the Iran-Iraq border - in an operation that Washington asserts is aimed at preventing Iranian infiltration - should beware of the "red line" represented by the border.
"There is no Iranian interference in Iraq's internal affairs," Mr Kharrazi said during a joint press conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin.
Saying US forces on the border was "not a new phenomenon" since the beginning of the war on Iraq, Mr Kharrazi added: "It is clear that we are going to defend our frontiers; the red line passes along the line of our borders."
The White House said on Wednesday it had warned Iran against "any outside interference" in Iraq and had begun military patrols near the border, amid concerns that Tehran may have sent agents across to push its brand of Islamic government.
Mr Kharrazi also reflected widespread official alarm over the contents of a ceasefire deal between Washington and the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen guerrillas - the main armed Iranian opposition group that has been using Iraqi soil to oppose Tehran's clerical regime for well over a decade.
The US military has confirmed it had reached a ceasefire agreement with the Mujahedeen, which a spokesman in Iraq said included allowing the militia to keep its arms, stay in Iraq and continue to wage its armed struggle.
"If this news that they can stay there and keep their arms is correct, this will expose the Amercians' plans for the region and it would be contrary to international law," Mr Kharrazi said.
The US, like the European Union, has officially classed the People's Mujahedeen - which is believed to have thousands of soldiers in Iraq - as a "terrorist organisation".
But reports of a deal have been seen as an early sign that Washington may be looking to recast the group as "freedom fighters", even though some of its camps were targeted by US-British coalition warplanes during the war against Saddam's regime.