Iraq, Iran renew contacts on prisoners

An Iraqi official announced on Monday in Baghdad that Iraq and Iran held secret talks aimed at reactivating bilateral talks concerning the question of prisoners of war.

The Iraqi weekly Nabd al-Shabab quoted the chairman of the Iraqi side in the Iraqi- Iranian committee for prisoners and missing, Fahmi al-Qeisi, as saying that the aim of resuming talks is to eliminate obstacles so as to lift the suffering of the Iraqi prisoners, close this issue and exchange the remains.

Al-Qeisi stressed that the two sides set the month of September as a date to exchange visits in the Iraqi district of al-Shalamja on the Iraqi-Iranian war.

The question of the prisoners and the missing is considered the main obstacle before maintaining normalization of relations between the two countries, some 11 years after the end of the war between them.