Iran to unilateraly free Iraqi prisoners

"Iran will unilaterally free 460 Iraqi prisoners of war (PoWs) on humanitarian ground ..(and) hand them to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on May 23 and the ICRC in return has undertaken to follow up the fate of 3,206 Iranian soldiers who, according to the substantial evidences available, are now languishing in Iraqi prisons, according to a report by the Iranian news agency IRNA earlier this week.

Brigadier-General Abdollah Najafi, head of the Iranian special commission on PoWs was reported as saying on Wednesday "Iran has proved its goodwill to Iraq several times to solve the outstanding issue on PoWs and those missing in action (MiAs) while the Iraqi government has taken no step to help solve the problem since last August."

IRNA reported him as saying "6,743 Iraqi PoWs have been interviewed by the ICRC in the past two years and announced that they will not return to Iraq. Iran has helped clarify the fate of 17,275 Iraqi PoWs since 1995 by freeing 10,514 PoWs and cooperating with the ICRC to hold interviews with 6,743 PoWs who refrained from returning home," adding "Iran has freed 50,019 Iraqi PoWs in 106 stages while Iraq has freed 39,417 Iranian PoWs in 70 stages since the United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1998."