7 Face-to-Face Talks Fail to Bring Gulf Peace Closer

Peace talks between Iran and Iraq recessed Friday after seven direct sessions produced no tangible progress toward a permanent peace agreement.

Iraq and Iran agreed to resume negotiations “in the near future,” possibly in December or January, said U.N. mediator Jan Eliasson.

U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar has urged the two governments to use the recess for “deep reflection” and to take steps “to move the peace process forward,” Eliasson said after the 50-minute meeting.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati of Iran said the meetings brought a “better climate, and we do hope that the next round will achieve practical progress.”

His Iraqi counterpart, Tarik Aziz, said Iraq “will do its best to make the next round fruitful. “

Contacts will continue with both sides to ensure “careful preparations so that the next round will provide us with results,” Eliasson said.

Iran and Iraq have reaffirmed their commitment to uphold the cease-fire and to implement U.N. Resolution 598, which calls for a comprehensive peace settlement, he said.

Eliasson gave both sides credit for their “positive cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross” in accepting a Red Cross proposal to begin Nov. 20 with the exchange of 1,569 sick and wounded prisoners.

But Eliasson told a news conference that the talks remain stuck on the “points of immediate concern,” listing a provision to withdraw forces to internationally recognized borders without delay among them.

A U.N. report said at some border positions, troops are only paces apart.

President Ali Khamenei of Iran blamed the lack of an agreement on Iraq’s continued presence on Iranian soil.

“We regard the presence of Iraqi troops in our territory a sign of war, and if the Iraqi leadership is serious in its quest for peace, it must remove this sign from our territory,” Khamenei said Friday at Tehran University.

He said no other moves in the negotiations could be accepted until the troops are withdrawn. His remarks were carried on Tehran Radio and monitored in Cyprus.

Iraq has not denied an Iranian claim that Iraqi troops still hold 386 square miles of Iranian territory while no Iranian soldier has remained on Iraqi soil.

Iran insists that the withdrawal be based on a 1975 border treaty which President Saddam Hussein of Iraq ripped up five days before his divisions moved into Iran in 1980. Iraq says the treaty must be renegotiated.

The atmosphere at the third round, which started Oct. 31, was described by Eliasson as “constructive and sober.” But he made clear that the climate remained chilly and that both sides generally refused to speak to each other.

“There is a dialogue, one speaks in front of each other,” he said, adding that during coffee or tea breaks there are “occasions you could detect something that could also be called conversation.”