Iranian foreign minister's first visit in 10 years to Iraq today
Iraq-Iran, Politics, 10/13/2000

An Iraqi source said on Thursday that the Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi will today ( Friday ) hold the first visit by an Iranian foreign minister for Iraq since 10 years with the aim to normalize the tense relations, whereas Iranian media sources ruled out the visit taking place because of the developments taking place in the region, especially in the Palestinian territories.

However, the last visit for an Iranian foreign minister to Iraq went back to 1990. Two years after the end of the war between the two countries, when former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar velayati visited Baghdad and held talks with the Iraqi officials on normalizing relations. The Iraqi source said that Kharazi will hold talks with his Iraqi counterpart Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf dealing with " solving all suspending issues" and will meet with high ranking Iraqi officials.

With the exception of the visits held by Iranian pilgrims to the Shiite holy shrines in Iraq, Baghdad and Tehran have so far failed to reach any agreement that leads to improving their bilateral relations.

The chairman of the Arab and foreign relations at the Iraqi national council ( parliament ) Salem al-Kubeisi said that Baghdad "welcomes any Iranian initiative aiming at normalizing relations between the two countries and closing all pending files."

Kharazi's visit came after the meeting which was held between vice President in Iraq Taha Yassin Ramadan and the Iranian President Muhammad Khatami on the sideline of OPEC's summit which was held in Caracas by the end of September.

The main pending issues between the two countries are the question of the prisoners of war which lasted for 8 years ( 1980- 1988), the compensations, the Iraqi planes which resorted to Iran before the war of liberating Kuwait and each of the two countries ' sheltering armed opposition movements for the other.

Baghdad stresses that Iran still holds 10,000 Iraqi prisoners and estimates the number of missing at 60,000. It also stresses it has no more Iranian prisoners and that 400 Iranians preferred to stay in Iraq after they had informed the international committee of the Red Cross their rejection to return back to their country. Iran always denies the Iraqi claims over the issue of the prisoners.

By the beginning of August Iran released 728 Iraqi prisoners, stressing that they are the last shift of the Iraqi prisoners it holds.

Iraq says it had sent to Iran 115 warplanes and 33 civilian planes before the eruption of the Gulf war to protect them from bombardment operations. But Iran stresses it has only 22 planes and that it is ready to return them back to Iraq if the UN will agree on that.

Baghdad also accuses Tehran of sheltering the Shiite Iraqi opposition with its main faction " the higher council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq," whereas Iran accuses Iraq of sheltering " Mujahidi Khalq " organization, the main opposition movements for the Iranian regime.

Previous Stories:
  New proposals between Iraq and Iran   (10/5/2000)
  Opening an Iraqi opposition bureau in Terhan   (10/3/2000)
  Systematic air flights between Baghdad and Moscow to begin   (10/3/2000)

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