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Iran reopens five border crossing points
with Iraqi Kurdistan
8.10.2007
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October
8, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
Iran opened on Monday five border crossing points
with autonomous region of Kurdistan 'northern Iraq',
closed last
month by Tehran to protest the U.S. detention of an
Iranian here, an Iraqi Kurdish official said.
Jamal Abdullah, spokesman for the Kurdistan regional
government in 'northern Iraq', expressed relief that
the crossings reopened at 9 a.m. Monday and added
that the decision to reopen them followed a visit by
a
Kurdish delegation
to Iran three days ago.
Iran closed the border with the Kurdish northern
Iraq on Sept. 24 following the arrest of Mahmoud
Farhadi, who was taken into custody four days
earlier by U.S. troops in the Iraqi Kurdish city of
Sulaimaniyah
The U.S. military said the arrested Iranian was a
member of the Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards alleged to smuggle weapons to
Shiite extremists in Iraq.
An Iranian source told Rozhnama newspaper that Farhadi was a member of Quds army and
most members of the [Iranian delegation] are members
of the
Iranian intelligence agency
(Ittilaa’t).
The Iraqi government has asked the U.S. Embassy in
Baghdad to release the man, saying he was in the
country on official business.
Last week, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a
Kurd, complained that Iran was
punishing the
Kurdish region for something the Kurdish authorities
were not responsible for — the Iranian's arrest. The
Kurdish region relies heavily on commerce with Iran
and economic ties between the two are strong.
But U.S. officials have complained the porous
boundary is a transit route for foreign fighters and
weapons into Iraq.
"Reopening borders will have its good results of
economical interests for both countries," Abdullah
said, adding it was up to Tehran and Baghdad to
"prevent gunmen from having access to either side of
border."
Hundreds of cargo trucks had lined up on the Iraqi
side of the border Sunday, when Iran's official news
agency IRNA had said the crossing would reopen.
Farhadi's arrest has raised U.S.-Iran tensions,
already taxed over Tehran's controversial nuclear
program and the January arrest by U.S. troops of
five other Iranians in Erbil, the capital of
Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq', for alleged links
to the Quds force.
AP
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