Iran will shortly release some 2,000 Iraqi prisoners, paper

An Iraqi paper said on Monday that Iran will shortly release 2,000 of its Iraqi prisoners of war.

The Iraqi paper, Nabd al-Shabab, added that the Iraqi prisoners who were recently registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross will be handed over to the Iraqi authorities at the border checkpoint area of al-Mandareyah within two weeks.

Last week Iran handed over some 1,999 Iraqi prisoners under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. But Iraq says that Iran still holds 9,000 prisoners registered by the ICRC.

The ICRC said on Thursday that more 4,600 Iraqi prisoners of war do not want to return to their homeland.

On Sunday Iran said that Iraq still holds more than 3,000 Iranian prisoners.

The fate of the prisoners of war is still among the very difficult issues in Iraqi-Iranian relations 12 years after the end of the two countries' 1980-1988 war which resulted in the deaths of one million people from the two sides.