Iraq accuses Iran of violating cease fire agreement

Iraq has accused Iran of committing 41 cease- fire violations between the two countries and the Tehran agreement for the buffer Zone signed between the two countries during a three months period.

In a message addressed to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday, Iraq's permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri explained that the Iranian violations which took place in the period between the beginning of February until May 15th included cases when Iranian planes flew over several Iraqi positions and building cement fortifications and installing new towers and monitoring several fire opening incidents carried out by the Iranian forces and resulted in wounding several Iraqi citizens.

However, there are still several issues that prevent the normalization of relations between Iraq and Iran, especially the issue of war prisoners and also the two countries' reciprocal accusations of supporting each other's opposition, Iraq's demands from Iran to send back 100 civilian and military planes it had sent to Iran before the second Gulf war.