Australia and Iran are set to share intelligence to track foreign fighters working with the Islamic State group in Iraq, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop said yesterday, as lawmakers urged caution.
In the first trip to Iran by an Australian minister in more than a decade, Bishop said it would be an informal arrangement.
Her comments came after a meeting with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s foreign affairs adviser Ali Akbar Velayati.
“We have a common purpose with Iran in defeating DAESH and helping the Iraqi government,” Bishop told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, using an Arabic-language acronym for the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“During my discussions with the national leadership here, it was agreed that we could share intelligence, particularly on the foreign terrorist fighters from Australia who are taking part in this conflict in Iraq,” she added.
More than 100 Australians have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight with the jihadists, raising concerns about the threat of homegrown extremists.
On Saturday, two men were arrested in Melbourne, Australia, for allegedly planning an Islamic State group-inspired attack at Anzac Day commemorations on Saturday honoring soldiers who fought and died for Australia.
Bishop said Tehran had a strong military presence and long relationship with Iraq, coupled with a sophisticated intelligence network in places where Canberra had no presence.
“I believe that Iran has information that we would seek and they were very agreeable to share that information with us,” she said, without spelling out what Tehran would get in return. “I won’t go into detail of our intelligence-sharing arrangements, but obviously if Iran has information that will be of interest to us, if we have information that would be of interest to them, in pursuing our common purpose of defeating DAESH, then that is an appropriate exchange.”
Independent Australian Member of Parliament Andrew Wilkie, a former intelligence analyst, warned Canberra it was “flirting with evil.”
“The regime in Iran can’t be trusted and Australia is flirting with evil by establishing any sort of security relationship with it,” he said, adding that Tehran had a track record of disseminating disinformation to further its own agenda.
The Labor opposition also urged caution.
“We need to keep our eyes open whenever we deal with them,” Labor leader Bill Shorten said.
Australia is part of an international coalition in Iraq and last week began deploying 330 more troops to train local soldiers fighting the Islamic State group, joining an aerial and special forces contingent in the region.
Iran, though not part of the coalition, has run a parallel campaign using Shiite militias and military advisers to reverse the Islamic State group surge that came close to felling the Baghdad government in June last year.
Bishop said she made a point of explaining to Tehran that the deployment of more troops was strictly for military training purposes.
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