Vice President Joe Biden told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Iran’s “influence or interference” in Iraq “is very much overstated,” even though attacks in Baghdad attributed to Iran by some locals spiked over November.
“The Vice President again expressed his conviction which you’ve heard him talk about that Iranian influence in Iraq is very much overstated, that the Iraqis do not appreciate outside meddling or interference from anyone, starting with Iran,” a senior administration official told reporters in a briefing on Biden’s trip, adding “that, of course, there was going to be a relationship,” which Biden believes will be “perfectly normal.”
Biden, according to the official, told Erdogan that “in terms of negatively influencing Iraq or acting in any kind of malicious fashion there are very strong Iraqi antibodies to that kind of influence or interference.”
At least one Baghdad resident holds the opposite position. He told reporters last week that Iran defeated the United States in Iraq, and expressed fear that “there might be more killing [by Iran] in order to control the Iraqi people.”
