U.S. President George W. Bush, who has consistently accused Tehran of attempting to destabilize the situation in Iraq, said on Thursday that insurgents in Basra, which has been caught up in a new surge of violence, "received arms and training and funding from Iran."
Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said: "Such allegations are groundless and boring, merely repeating the position of the occupiers' government. The U.S. president's remarks are an attempt to flee from reality in Iraq, which, unfortunately, U.S. politicians are not prepared to face up to."
The occupation "has destabilized the situation in the country and caused the suffering of the Iraqi people," Hosseini said.
Violence has continued unabated in Iraq in the five years since the formal end of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Over 100 people have been killed in the past three weeks in a series of bomb and mortar attacks throughout the country. The death toll among U.S. troops now stands at 4,000.
