World leaders deplore Baghdad stampede
Afp, Tehran
Shia Iran on Wednesday led a worldwide chorus of horror and outrage over the deaths of almost 1,000 people in a stampede as they headed to a Shia shrine in Iraq, blaming "suspicious hands" bent on causing havoc in the country. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi expressed his country's "condolences and sympathy with the Iraqi people and government." Syria, another neighbour of Iraq, expressed its "sorrow and sadness" over the incident that "cost the lives of hundreds of persons among the brotherly Iraqi people," a foreign ministry spokesman said. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan offered his condolences to families of the victims and to the Iraqi government. In Washington a state department spokesman said the United States deeply regretted the tragic loss in human lives among the pilgrims.
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