Iraqis Will Pull Out of Off-Limits Border Zone : Truce: Baghdad heeds a U.S. military warning to adhere to the cease-fire demarcation line.

Iraq agreed today to pull 300 troops out of an off-limits zone along its border with Kuwait, ending an incursion that violated the tentative cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War.

Heeding a warning from the U.S. military, Iraq said the troops will be back behind the demarcation truce line by tonight, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Riyadh.

The dispute began when Kuwaiti military officials complained that the Iraqis had crossed into Kuwait just south of the Iraqi town of Umm al Qasr, a long-disputed gateway to the Gulf.

It was the first border incursion to be reported since hostilities ended Feb. 28.

“We have their (Iraq’s) assurances they’ll be out by the end of the day (today),” said Maj. Keith Gillett, Central Command spokesman.

Although defused quickly and peacefully, the incident was symptomatic of the sort of border disputes that the American military hopes to avoid yet risks getting drawn into.

Thousands of U.S. troops continue to occupy a portion of southern Iraq, staffing checkpoints, caring for refugees and watching the Iraqi military at a distance.

The U.S. command said Tuesday that 200 to 300 Iraqi soldiers had been detected in the last few days in two warehouse-type buildings within 1,000 meters (six-tenths of a mile) of the border and inside U.S.-controlled territory.

The command would not say whether the Iraqis were on Kuwaiti land or in U.S.-occupied Iraq--only that they had crossed the demarcation line established as part of the preliminary cease-fire.

The demarcation line was drawn through the area to separate allied and Iraqi troops until a final truce is negotiated. Each side agreed to remain more than 1,000 meters from the line, which runs through southern Iraq until it nears the coast, where it coincides with the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.

A Kuwaiti commander in Abdaly, Kuwait, told the Associated Press recently that the Iraqi soldiers were occupying an abandoned Kuwaiti military barracks and observation post.

The commander, Capt. Nasser Duwaila, accused the Iraqis of trying to retake Kuwaiti land. Umm al Qasr is a strategic port with a naval station and is important to Iraqi shipping.

After Kuwait complained, the U.S. military Tuesday issued a warning to Iraqi officers in Umm al Qasr, who were “reminded of their obligation to enforce the demarcation line and its 1,000-meter agreement.”

“We anticipate this matter will be resolved peacefully and quickly and the Iraqi military will comply as requested to move these soldiers onto their side of the demarcation line,” the command said in a statement early Tuesday.

U.S. officials sought to downplay the incident.

“We think they (the Iraqi soldiers) were looking for shelter from rain,” said a senior military source.