Iran has thousands of paid operatives working in neighboring Iraq, an Iranian opposition group based in France said Friday, and it released the names of nearly 32,000 people it alleged were involved.
The National Council of Resistance's allegations could not be independently verified. And a press officer at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, speaking on condition of anonymity because of embassy policy, called the claims "completely false" and said Tehran supports stability in the region.
The council is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of Iran's Islamic government. The council has been based in France since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, who heads the council's foreign affairs committee, alleged that thousands of Iraqis are working on Iran's behalf.
"The clerical regime, faced with intensifying domestic crisis and isolation inside Iran, views its only chance for survival in the establishment of a proxy regime in Iraq," Mohaddessin said at a news conference in Paris.
