Iran dismissed on Wednesday accusations by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal that Tehran has helped train and arm Taliban insurgents.
"Those kinds of lies are designed to conceal the failures of the (NATO forces) in Afghanistan," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.
On Sunday, McChrystal told reporters in Kabul that Iran _ Afghanistan's western neighbor _ has generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group.
"There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity _ in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban _ that is inappropriate," he said. McChrystal did not provide details on how many fighters allegedly were trained in Iran.
Speaking in Brussels, where he met with EU officials and European lawmakers, Mottaki said that "in Afghanistan, Iran has always been part of the solution," and that Tehran was cooperating with the government in Kabul to stabilize the war-torn nation.
But he lambasted "erroneous" U.S. policies, blaming them for the ongoing conflict.
"When they arrived in Afghanistan eight years ago, the Americans said they would bring stability, destroy the drug trade and eliminate extremists and terrorists."
Instead, the extremists are still there today, drugs production is at record levels, and instability has engulfed the entire country, he said.
"The result is that ... extremism and fundamentalism have spread throughout the region," Mottaki said.
Mottaki also played down the possibility that the U.N. Security Council will adopt a U.S.-backed resolution calling for further sanctions against Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium.
He said its chances of passage were "very, very small," and that Russia and other security council members were already working to modify it.
Mottaki praised a deal reached between Iran and Brazil and Turkey, providing for a fuel-swap intended to address concerns that Iran may be enriching uranium for nuclear weapons. U.S. officials have criticized the agreement, in part because it does not stop Iran from continuing to enrich uranium.
"There have always been two options on the table _ the option based on cooperation, and the second based on confrontation," he said. "The American position is based on confrontation, while the deal (with Turkey and Brazil) is based on cooperation."
He said Iran intended to build up to 20 nuclear electrical power stations in the future, because they were 10 times cheaper to operate than fossil-burning plants.
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