Iraqi envoy to Vietnam vows to fight on

He arrived in Hanoi as Iraq’s ambassador only three weeks ago, and immediately caused a diplomatic flap by warning that if he ever ran into the envoys of the US, Britain or Australia he would slap them.

On Thursday, Salah Al-Mukhtar was angrier. ‘‘I will never shake hands with assassins — definitely. This is our homeland destroyed by British and Americans,” he said. But he had warm words for his hosts, whose own war against America ended in 1975, costing three million Vietnamese lives by Hanoi’s count. The southeast Asian country has spoken out strongly against the US-led war on Iraq.

Al-Mukhtar, ambassador to India for four years before taking up his post in Vietnam, denied US troops had taken Baghdad. ‘‘There is still fighting,’’ he said. ‘‘We are determined to fight until victory, this is not the occupation of Baghdad, this is the occupation of part of Baghdad.’’

He insisted he was still the Iraqi representative in Hanoi, and said if he returned to his homeland it would be as a “freedom fighter”. “I would go back to fight back against America and other colonialist forces,” he said. (Reuters)