Iran Seeks to Scuttle U.S. Pact With Kabul

WSJ—Iran is raising pressure on Afghanistan to scuttle a newly signed security accord with the U.S., threatening to deport Afghan refugees and migrant workers if Afghanistan's parliament ratifies the deal.

Fazal Hadi Muslimyar, the speaker of Afghanistan's upper house of parliament, told The Wall Street Journal that Tehran's newly appointed ambassador to Kabul told Afghan lawmakers last week that they should not ratify the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement.

Signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai in Kabul last week, the deal outlines what military and political role the U.S. will play in Afghanistan after most foreign forces withdraw in 2014.

Tehran has made no secret of its displeasure with the accord. Ramin Mehmanparast, the spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, said Sunday that the presence of U.S. forces was destabilizing the region, and that peace could be achieved in Afghanistan only by the complete withdrawal of foreign troops.

Iran's large Afghan refugee population gives Tehran leverage over Afghanistan's cash-strapped government.

Abdul Samad Hami, Afghanistan's deputy minister of refugees and repatriation, said Iran is home to around one million registered Afghan refugees, and a "moving number" of undocumented migrants.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans go to Iran to seek work as manual laborers, often in construction, agriculture and other low-wage jobs.

Mr. Hami said both Iran and Pakistan have used the presence of Afghan migrants and refugees as a "political vehicle" to pressure Kabul.

Mr. Muslimyar, the parliamentarian, said he rebuffed the request made by the Iranian ambassador, Abolfazl Zohrehvand. "I told him that we are an independent country, and it's up to us with whom we want an agreement and with whom we don't," Mr. Muslimyar said he told Mr. Zohrehvand.

Other Afghan lawmakers voiced similar sentiments. Khalid Pashtoon, a parliamentarian from Kandahar, called the Iranian demand a "very clear interference" in the internal affairs of Afghanistan.

Pressure from Iran, Mr. Pashtoon added, would ensure the accord's ratification. "Now it'll be 100% endorsement," he said.

Mr. Karzai accepted Mr. Zohrehvand's credentials just last month. The Iranian Embassy in Kabul and Iran's foreign ministry didn't respond to requests to comment.

At a briefing on Tuesday, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said he wasn't aware of the situation but that the U.S. urged "Iran to play a constructive role."

Iran and Afghanistan have a close but complicated relationship. A dialect of Iran's Farsi language is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, and the two countries are proud of their shared cultural and historical heritage. Afghanistan's Shiite minority is also bonded with Iran by common faith.

As recently as in late 2010, Mr. Karzai was regularly receiving funds from the Iranian government to help pay for his office expenses. The relationship worsened since then, however, especially after Iran briefly shut its border with Afghanistan to the country's vital fuel supplies.

The latest diplomatic spat has touched off intense media scrutiny in Afghanistan, particularly after Afghan authorities arrested the Kabul correspondent for an Iranian news agency, claiming the man was spying for Tehran.

Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said Sunday its correspondent in Kabul, Abdulvahed Hakimi, had been arrested by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security.

An Afghan official said Mr. Hakimi had been detained on suspicion of passing classified documents to Iran. The official said Afghan authorities recently arrested two other Afghan nationals on suspicion of spying for Tehran.

Adding to the controversy were reports in the Afghan media that Afghanistan's diplomatic mission in Iran was recently harassed. Some employees at the Afghan Embassy in Tehran had recently been roughed up in the Iranian capital, according to a Western official and media reports.

The confrontation flared up as Western powers prepare for a second round of talks on Iran's controversial nuclear-enrichment program, which has brought Iran into open conflict with the West.

Heather Barr, the Human Rights Watch researcher in Afghanistan, said Iran had a pattern of using Afghanistan's vulnerable refugee population as a "political football" both in disputes with Afghanistan, as well as in response to pressure from the U.S.

"This is just the most recent of what's been a longstanding tendency by the Iranian government to use the presence of migrants and refugees as leverage in their dealings with Afghanistan," she said.