Iran appeals to Turkey on Asgari’s disappearance

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-231476-iran-appeals-to-turkey-on-asgaris-disappearance.html

04 January 2011, Tuesday / TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, İSTANBUL

Ali Reza Asgari

Iran has appealed to Turkey and the international community to help learn the fate of a senior official who Tehran says was kidnapped from a hotel in İstanbul in 2006 and killed by Israel.

Iran’s former deputy defense minister, Ali Reza Asgari, disappeared during a visit to İstanbul in December 2006. There has been speculation that he defected to a Western country and now lives in the US, but Iran insists he was kidnapped by Israeli agents and transferred to a prison in Israel, or occupied Palestine as Iran calls it. The issue came to the fore once again when the Israeli media reported last week the suicide of an unidentified prisoner in solitary confinement in Ayalon Prison. The Eurasia Review website later claimed that a source within the “inner circle” of the Israeli defense ministry had identified the prisoner as Asgari and that his death could have been murder and not suicide. On Sunday head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said Asgari’s abduction in Turkey is an established fact. “He had most likely been taken to Israel through the US military base in Turkey, Incirlik, and must have been interrogated and martyred during the same interrogations,” said Boroujerdi. He called on Ankara to reveal the names of those involved in the kidnapping and said, “We expect Turkey to disclose the names of the terrorists affiliated with the Mossad spy agency.” Since the reports of suicide came out, Iranian officials have also appealed to the United Nations and the international community to learn about the fate of Asgari and get Asgari’s body back -- if he is really dead. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to help clarify the fate of Asgari. He also said Israel is “directly responsible” for Asgari’s life and called for an “opportune response from the international community and especially the organizations responsible for international peace and security.” Iran will also follow its case through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the world’s largest humanitarian organization. “We seriously demand that the international community take necessary action regarding this issue and be answerable as to how an Iranian citizen was kidnapped by the Zionist regime’s intelligence apparatus in a third country and … was jailed, tortured and later martyred,” said Kazem Jalali, the spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. The Turkish government, which has been building closer political and economic ties with Iran since 2002, has so far been silent about the Iranian request for help in the Asgari case. Asked by Today’s Zaman to comment on the case, a Turkish official speaking on the condition of anonymity, briefly said on Monday that “Turkey did not hand anyone to anyone else.” Turkey’s relations with Israel, once a model partnership, are now on the verge of collapse amid Turkish criticism of Israeli policies in Gaza and Israel’s refusal to apologize for a May 31 raid on an aid ship in international waters of the Mediterranean, which resulted in the deaths of eight Turks and one Turkish-American. Members of Asgari’s family gathered in front of the Turkish Embassy in Tehran in early December, on the fourth anniversary of his disappearance, calling on Turkey to pursue the issue more seriously. According to Asgari’s wife, Turkey should be held accountable for her husband’s abduction on its soil. “Ali Reza Asgari was abducted in Turkey. Iran can follow up the issue through this country, and Turkey should be answerable on the issue,” Asgari’s widow, Ziba Ahmadi, told Iranian media. Iran says Israel has conducted similar activities in the past, citing the disappearance of four Iranian diplomats in 1982 in Lebanon as an example. According to Iranian officials, the diplomats were taken by Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias at gunpoint in northern Lebanon in 1982 and were later handed over to the Israeli army. Israeli officials, on the other hand, then said that the four were arrested by the militia and then transferred to another location for interrogation, at the conclusion of which they either died as a result of torture or were summarily executed. Their bodies were never found, but reports said they were buried in an open field in Beirut, upon which a commercial center was later built.