Iran, Iraq Agree to Exchange Prisoners : Accord on Sick, Wounded 1st Sign of Progress in Talks

Iraq and Iran agreed today to an immediate exchange of sick and wounded prisoners of war, the first tangible progress in their peace talks since a cease-fire took effect in August.

Both sides said it was up to the International Committee of the Red Cross to arrange the swap, which will involve no more than a few thousand prisoners, as soon as possible.

Iraq said in a statement in Geneva that it is accepting an Iranian proposal to exchange the prisoners on humanitarian grounds. Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz relayed the decision to committee President Cornelio Sommaruga.

‘Will Do His Best’

“The president told me that he will do his best so that this operation will take place as soon as possible,” Aziz told reporters after the meeting.

Iran’s chief negotiator on prisoners of war, Ataollah Mohajerani, confirmed that the exchange could go ahead. “It now depends on the Red Cross to arrange the timing,” he told the Iranian news agency IRNA in Geneva.

Iran and Iraq had previously disagreed on everything from troop withdrawal to prisoner exchanges, and negotiators had said the talks, which started on Aug. 25, were stalled.

Iran had refused an Iraqi request for an immediate exchange of all 100,000 prisoners of war, saying that Iraq must first leave its soil.

Agreed to Exchange

But it agreed to exchanging sick prisoners, and a Red Cross spokesman said that once technical details had been worked out with the two sides, repatriation could begin almost immediately.

A Red Cross doctor must verify that each prisoner is able to travel and another Red Cross delegate must interview each prisoner without witnesses to make sure he wants to return.

Diplomats said U.N. mediator Jan Eliasson would welcome the breakthrough because the atmosphere at the talks had been deteriorating and substantive progress had been lacking.

Early in the talks Eliasson and U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar had stressed the need for small confidence-building steps that could lessen the deep mistrust built up over eight years of war.

“It is a very hopeful sign,” one Western diplomat said.

There was still no sign of progress on other important military and political elements of the talks, which Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Mohammed Besharati said could drag on for years.