Iran/Iraq border talks

[BLUEHAWK]

From Al Jazeera: 7 Jan 09

Iran and Iraq hold border talks

A standoff between Iran and Iraq occured last month over the Fauqa oil field near the shared border [EPA]

The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq have met in Baghdad in an attempt to resolve rising tensions over a disputed border between the two countries.

Manouchehr Mottaki and Hoshyar Zebari, his Iraqi counterpart, agreed on Thursday that the two countries would hold a series of meetings from next week about the issue.

"We have agreed to normalise the border situation between the two countries and return to the situation as it was before," Zebari said.

Mottaki said the Iranian leadership was "willing and determined to solve the border dispute".

He said the meetings would be held between technical committees to determine the land and maritime borders separating the countries.

The meeting was held nearly a month after standoff between Iran and Iraq over their 1,400km-long border.

On December 18, 2009, Iraq's state-owned South Oil company said about a dozen Iranian troops and technicians arrived at the Fauqa oil field, taken control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag.

They withdrew a few days later.

The incursion was one of the most serious incidents between the two neighbours since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, who fought a devastating 1980-1988 war against Iran.

Co-ordinated bombings

The Mottaki-Zebari meeting came against a backdrop of fresh attacks in Iraq.

Co-ordinated bombings targeted the homes of four Iraqi security officials, killing seven people and wounded six others, in Hiyt, a town in Anbar province, on Thursday.

The victims included relatives of an Iraqi army ani-terrorist special forces commander.

Attackers planted explosives around the bedrooms of the policemen in Hiyt, 60km west of Ramadi, the provincial capital, Lieutenant-Colonel Fadhil Nimrawi, the head of the town's emergency response unit, said.

"At 3am, men planted bombs around the bedrooms of four houses belonging to members of the police force, including Major Walid al-Hiyti, the head of Hiyt's anti-terror department," Nimrawi said.

Al-Hiyti was seriously wounded and his father, mother, two sisters, brother and sister-in-law, as well as a lawyer, were killed, police said.

Nimrawi said several people had been arrested in connection with the attack, but declined to specify how many, citing security reasons.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/mi...722809247.html