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Iran closes all border crossings with
Iraqi Kurdistan region
24.9.2007
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September
24, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
Iran on Monday closed its border with Iraq's
northern Kurdistan region in protest at the arrest
of an Iranian by the US military, a Kurdish official
said.
"All five entry points on the border between Iran
and Kurdistan region have been closed by the Iranian
authorities from today," said Jamal Abdallah,
spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government..
Iran on Monday confirmed it had closed its border
with the northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan in
protest at the arrest last week of an Iranian
national.
"We have closed the border and we hope the Iraqi
authorities will act as quickly as possible to
release our colleague," Esmaeel Najar, the governor
of Iran's northwestern Kurdistan province said.
Mahmudi Farhadi was taken from a hotel in the
regional capital Sulaimaniyah on Thursday by US
forces which accused him of being a member of the
covert operations section of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards.
Iran however has insisted the man is a commerce
official at the governor's office in Iran's
Kermanshah province and was travelling as a member
of a commercial delegation.
"We had said that if he was not freed rapidly, we
would reconsider our commercial ties" with Iraqi
Kurdistan, added the governor.
Asked when the border would be reopened, he replied:
"We hope that the Iraqi authorities will act as
swiftly as possible to free our colleague."
Iraqi Kurdistan has land borders with Iran's West
Azarbaijan, Kurdestan and Kermanshah provinces.
On Saturday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had
demanded his immediate release, saying he was in
Iraq as part of a trade delegation.
In a letter to the top US officials in Iraq,
Talabani said Tehran had warned of closing the
border if Farhadi was not freed.
Talabani said the Iranian was a civilian official
who had been visiting with the blessing of both the
Kurdish regional government and the authorities in
Baghdad.
In a stern statement addressed to General David
Petraeus, the head of US forces in Iraq and
ambassador Ryan Crocker, he said: "I am informing
you of our displeasure over the arrest of the
Iranian civilian official without consulting the
government of Kurdistan.
"That is a humiliation for the regional
administration," said Talabani, who is himself a
Kurd.
"You ignored our authority. I ask for his immediate
release in order to maintain healthy relations
between Iran and Kurdistan and for the prosperity of
Kurdistan."
The US military charges that Farhadi was an officer
in the covert operations arm of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards.
But Talabani insisted the detainee was an official
on a "commercial mission with the knowledge of the
federal government in Baghdad and the government of
Kurdistan."
He said the arrest had triggered an angry reaction
from Tehran which has "threatened to close its
border with the Kurdish region if Mahmudi Farhadi, a
civilian employee of Kermanshah (province in western
Iran) is not released".
"This will handicap trade in the Kurdish region in
this blessed month," he added in a reference to
Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar.
The US military insists that the detainee is a Quds
Force officer, saying they used a photograph to
identify him.
Iran's ambassador in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi,
accused the US military of riding roughshod over
Iraq's sovereignty.
"This kind of action violates the sovereignty of
Iraq," he said in an interview with AFP.
"This is an example of American mistakes in Iraq."
The US military is also continuing to hold five
Iranians it detained in the northern Kurdish city of
Erbil in January on suspicion of aiding insurgents.
The five have never been charged and Iran insists
they are diplomats.
The US military also briefly detained eight
Iranians, including two diplomats, from a Baghdad
hotel last month.
But it later released them following protests from
the Iraqi government in what it described as a
"regrettable incident."
AFP
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