VIENNA - Iran wants to see a democratic Iraq where all the different ethnic and religious groups are protected, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Monday.
Khatami told reporters in Vienna that Iran wanted to see a government in Iraq "that is democratic and which looks out for the interests of all groups."
"What is important is sovereignty and the unity of Iraq," said Khatami, a moderate on the Iranian political scene who is expected to be replaced in presidential elections in June.
Khatami said that Iranian Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani had called "for a democratic system and Iran fully supports these plans."
Khatami said the current military occupation of Iran by a US-led coalition was damaging to the Iraqi people and also to the occupiers as "young American soldiers are victims" who are being killed.
Iraq moved Sunday towards a multi-party government when parliament championed two advocates of national reconciliation by naming Sunni Arab Hajem al-Hassani its speaker and Shiite Hussein al-Shahrastani as one of his two deputies.
The silver-haired and bearded Hassani offered healing words as the 275-member assembly took its first steps toward governing two months after elections, with the giant task of drafting a permanent constitution still to come.
"The Kurd has put his hand in the Arab's hand and the Shiite has taken the Sunni's hand so they could all walk side-by-side along with their Christian and Turkmen brothers as flowers bloom and people unite for a prosperous future," said the portly Hassani in his acceptance speech.
04/04/2005 13:30 GMT