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Iran,
Iraq Warming Ties After Years Of Hostility
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| Iran and
Iraq start a new phase |
TEHRAN,
Jan 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iran's President Mohammad Khatami
told Iraq's foreign minister, who is on a ground-breaking visit, that the former
enemies should "look to the future rather than the past" and solve
their problems on a basis of mutual understanding, news agencies reported.
Khatami
met in the Iranian capital with the Iraqi minister, Naji Sabri, who is on a trip
to resolve the fate of thousands of refugees and prisoners of war (POWs), which
has been the main hurdle to a normalization of ties between the neighbours since
their devastating eight-year war in the eighties.
"The
recent meetings and exchanges between officials from both countries are
encouraging and should continue," Khatami was quoted by state radio as
saying during their meeting, AFP reported.
The two countries "should look to the future and solve their problems,
especially humanitarian issues, through discussion, negotiation and
understanding," he said.
The reformist president added that the 1975 accords "should be the basis
for settling pending issues" between the two countries.
The accords, signed in Algiers in March 1975 by the then Iraqi vice prime
minister Saddam Hussein, the country's current president, and the deposed
Iranian monarchy, provide for the sharing of land and sea borders.
An ensuing border dispute, as well as ideological differences between the
Islamic Tehran and secular Baghdad, helped to spark the 1980-1988 war. They
never signed a formal peace treaty to finish the bloody and ultimately
inconclusive fighting, which left a million dead on both sides.
Khatami also pointed to the religious, historical and neighborly relations and
commonalties between the two countries, and said he considered the recent
meetings of the two countries' authorities as an indication of their firm
intention to overcome past differences.
He
hoped that the ongoing meetings of top level authorities of the two countries
would open new horizons in Tehran-Baghdad relations. Khatami referred to ongoing
discussions in many joint committees, especially the humanitarian committee,
saying they have been successful, and stressed that the 1975 treaty between Iran
and Iraq must be respected.
Khatami
further pointed to the necessity of respecting the principles of Iraqi
sovereignty and non-intervention of foreign powers in its internal affairs, and
added that the domestic issues of every country in the region must be solved
solely by the countries concerned and with total freedom from interference by
other states, IRNA, Iran's official News Agency reported.
Khatami
described the unity of Islamic countries as a "necessity" for the sake
of countering threats facing the Islamic world as a whole, and pointed to the
atrocities committed by the Zionist regime against the oppressed Palestinians
after the September 11th attacks. He added that the Zionist regime,
unfortunately, has taken advantage of the events and is abusing the situation to
further oppress innocent Palestinian men and women and to put pressure on and
endanger the autonomous Palestinian government.
The
visiting Iraqi minister also held talks on Saturday with his Iranian
counterpart, Kamal Kharazi, about the PoWs, who continue to languish in prisons.
IRNA reported after that meeting that the ministers had promised to resolve all
the humanitarian issues in their troubled relations, but offered few concrete
details about the talks.
However, there have already been concrete signs of an important thaw in ties,
notably when Tehran last week released 682 Iraqi prisoners.
Iran also announced Wednesday that direct flights between Tehran and Damascus
will soon be allowed to pass through Iraqi airspace, and that direct flights
should soon resume under a recent deal.
Sabri's visit, scheduled to end Monday, also comes in a politically-charged
context, because of rumors of a potential U.S. attack against Iraq as part of
its war against terrorism, a prospect to which Tehran is opposed.
"We
have to close the file of humanitarian problems, and it will have very positive
repercussions on the relations between the two countries," Kharazi said
after his meeting with Sabri.
One hurdle to getting the PoWs home will be getting the sides to agree on their
number.
Iraq
says it has 29,000 prisoners in Iran, and accuses Tehran of not registering some
20,000 of them with the International Committee of the Red Cross. It also says
some 60,000 Iraqis have disappeared.
Tehran says 3,206 of its PoWs are still being held in Iraq, and has said it is
willing to listen to Baghdad's evidence over the disputed figures.
Other
prickly issues between the countries include Iraqi refugees in Iran and the fact
that each country hosts the other's opposition groups.
Iran's
vice interior minister for immigration, Hodjatoleslam Hassan Ali Ebrahimi, said
Saturday there were 220,000 officially registered Iraqi refugees in Iran, but
that the actual total was "near 300,000." However, other generally
accepted estimates place the figure at between 400,000 and 450,000 refugees.
"Officially, there are 220,000 Iraqi refugees in Iran, and many of them
live in some 20 camps in the west and southwest of the country," Mohammad
Nouri, an official of the U.N. refugee agency in Iran, told AFP.
The countries are now trying to assemble a "joint commission" to
verify the status of the official and unofficial refugees.
Ebrahimi
has also said that there are 20,000 Iranian refugees in Iraq, and that
"1,600 had asked to be repatriated."
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