|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BAGHDAD (News Agencies)-As a humanitarian gesture, Iran is reported to have freed a total of 1,000 Iraqi prisoners from the 1980-88 war over the weekend. Reporters saw the first 500 POWs, many looking ill and exhausted, cross the border on Sunday morning under supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Early reports said 500 more crossed late on Sunday night. The fate of POWs is still a thorn in Iraq-Iran ties nearly 12 years after a war, which cost a million lives. Baghdad says Iran is holding 9,000 of its soldiers. Tehran says Iraq has more than 5,000 Iranians and that many of the Iraqis it captured do not want to go home. Iraq gave heroes’ welcomes to the first batch of 500 freed POWs as families were reunited in emotional scenes at the border. When Sunday's first group arrived, relatives strained to recognize menfolk who went to war as young men and returned with grey hair. Some had been captives since 1982. The POW issue remains the main stumbling block to a normalization of ties between Iraq and Iran. The Iraq-Iran war has cost hundreds of thousands of lives on each side.
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
