Iraqi-Iranian talks for exchanging remains of war victims

A source at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad said on Wednesday that Iraqi and Iranian officials discussed on Wednesday in Baghdad the latest measures before exchanging remains of victims of their war (1980 - 1988).

An Iranian diplomat said that an Iranian delegation led by Maj. Gen. Meir Faisal Baqer Zada has been in Iraq since last Saturday for this purpose.

The Iraqi weekly al-Alaam quoted coordinator of the committee in charge of Iraqi war victims, Fahmi al-Qeisi, as saying that the Iranian delegation will spend four days in Baghdad and then head for al-Shalameja district (near Basra city) where the operation of delivering and receiving the remains of war victims will be carried out.

Baghdad also intends to ask for the release of Iraqi prisoners of war still held in Iran. In 1998, both Iraq and Iran started to normalize bilateral relations through exchanging visits of political and economic delegations. However, the normalization process between the two countries is stuck by the problem of war missing and prisoners.

Baghdad stresses that it had freed all Iranian prisoners of war and that it only keeps some 64 Iranians who took part in acts of violence that took place in southern Iraq in March 1991 following the Gulf War.

On the other part of the story, Tehran stressed that some 51,000 Iranian soldiers are still detained in Iraq, whereas Baghdad stresses that there are still 20,000 Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad in Iran.