Iran Rejects Iraq Request to Trade War Prisoners

Iran on Wednesday rejected an Iraqi request to agree to an immediate exchange of prisoners of war independently of current peace talks.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati told reporters after 3 1/2 hours of talks with his Iraqi counterpart, Tarik Aziz, that Iran first insisted that Iraq withdraw its troops occupying Iranian territory.

“We are ready to do that (exchange) immediately after the ending of the withdrawal of the forces to internationally recognized boundaries,” Velayati said.

Aziz had said earlier that Iraq was ready to begin immediately repatriating 30,000 Iranian prisoners of war independently of the U.N.-sponsored peace process if Iran agreed to do the same.

“We must separate the humanitarian issue from the process of negotiations,” Aziz said.

Iranian spokesman Morteza Sarmadi specified earlier that Tehran would only agree to an overall prisoner exchange as part of a package that included a troop withdrawal.

Aziz said after a 90-minute meeting with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Cornelio Sommaruga, that it was important to deal with the war prisoner issue separately since the Geneva talks might be protracted.

“States do need some time to reach agreement, especially when we have such a difficult and complicated case,” he said. “We must separate the humanitarian issue from the process of negotiations.”

The peace process has made little progress since talks opened in Geneva on Aug. 25, largely because of a dispute over the Shatt al Arab, the waterway that forms part of the border for the two Persian Gulf states.