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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iraq's defense minister
said Thursday that ousted leader Saddam Hussein was
the aggressor in the 1980-88 war against Iran, as
the two former enemies announced plans for closer
cooperation between their militaries.
Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi's visit to
Iran marked a new effort to build ties between Iraq
and mainly Shiite Muslim Iran after a
Shiite-dominated government came to power in Baghdad
this year.
''We've come here to open a new page in our
relations against the painful page of the past,''
al-Duleimi told reporters at a press conference with
his Iranian counterpart, Ali Shamkhani.
Shamkhani said Iran and Iraq would form joint
committees to work out cooperation on cleaning
minefields and ''modernizing Iraq's army.''
''No one can prevent this cooperation,'' Shamkhani
insisted, without elaborating on the extent of the
cooperation.
The United States -- Iran's No. 1 enemy -- is
helping build Iraq's military and security forces
and would likely oppose any Iranian intervention.
But the warm talk reflected the sympathies toward
Tehran from the new Baghdad government, where
several parties long tied to Iran hold sway.
Al-Duleimi on Thursday promised that Iraq would no
longer be a threat to its neighbors and he
acknowledged that Saddam's regime was responsible
for starting the bloody 1980-88 war against Iran, in
which one million people died.
He pointed to the ''painful past that led to the
victimization of many people from both nations by
Saddam.''
''Our Iranian brothers have overcome the pains
caused by Saddam, but our nation is still suffering
from the unfair decisions by Saddam,'' he said.
Saddam, who was captured in December 2003, is facing
a wide range of charges including killing his
opponents, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait in 1990
and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings against
his rule in 1991. Iran has said it was preparing to
file a lawsuit against Saddam for invading Iran.
Asked about $1 billion in war damages demanded by
Iran for the 1980-88 war, al-Duleimi said: ''We have
come to our brothers in Iran and have demanded
help.'' He didn't elaborate, but other Iraqi
officials have reportedly called on Iran to waive
the demand.
The comments from al-Duleimi -- a Sunni Muslim,
picked for the defense post in part in a bid to
bring Iraq's minority Sunnis behind the new
government -- were a sharp contrast to those of his
predecessor. Last year, former Iraqi Defense
Minister Hazem Shaalan called Iran his country's
''first enemy,'' accusing it of supporting Iraqi
insurgents and allowing them to freely cross the
border. Tehran says it is trying to control the
border, but at nearly 1,000 miles long, the frontier
is hard to police.
On Wednesday, the first day of al-Duleimi's visit,
Shamkhani demanded the Iraqi government push for the
removal of American forces on its soil, saying their
presence serves Israel's interest.
''Iran demands that the Iraqi government make a
decision on this case,'' Shamkhani said. ''The
government and people of Iraq should not allow
foreign forces to consolidate their control in the
area with the aim of providing security for
Israel.''
AP
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