Iran demands US free arrested "diplomats" in Iraq

TEHRAN, Jan 15 (Reuters) Iran is demanding the immediate release of five Iranians held by US forces in Iraq, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, adding that the five are diplomats.

The five were arrested on Thursday in the northern Iraqi town of Arbil and the US military has accused them of links to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard group that provides weapons to Iraqi insurgents.

''Americans should immediately release the five Iranians and pay compensation for the damages they caused to our office in Arbil,'' Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news conference yesterday, adding the five were ''involved in consulate affairs.'' ''Their activities were legal and in the framework of law,'' Hosseini said when asked whether the five Iranians were members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking in Managua, Nicaragua, as part of a tour of Latin America, said the arrests were a misstep by the United States.

''The United States should look for the root of its problems somewhere else,'' he said. ''This attitude will not resolve their problems. They want to cover up this failure (in Iraq) with other things ... They won't recover from this loss of credibility.'' US President George W Bush said on Wednesday he would send thousands more US troops to Iraq and pledged to interrupt a ''flow of support'' to insurgents from Iran.

Tehran denies backing the insurgency and blames US troops for the violence and for stoking tensions between Iraq's Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

''Americans want to radicalize the atmosphere in Iraq to justify their occupation, but we will act wisely,'' Hosseini said.

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