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Iran military officer and soldier arrested in Iraq - report

Sat. 30 Jul 2005

Iran Focus
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3051

London, Jul. 30 – An officer in Iran’s armed forces and an Iranian soldier were arrested together close to the southern Iraq city of Basra early Thursday morning, a London-based Arabic daily wrote in its Friday edition.

“Border guards detained on Thursday an Iranian officer and a soldier on Iraqi soil 30 kilometres northeast of Basra, one of the biggest southern cities of this country”, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat wrote, quoting a commander in Iraq’s border patrol.

“The arrest of these two individuals came just after midnight in Al-Nashwa region 30 kilometres northeast of Basra. At present, an investigation is underway to determine how they managed to cross the border”, the daily added.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Thursday night that he had complained to Iranian leaders in a recent visit to Tehran that Iran continued to meddle in the affairs of its neighbour.

Zebari told Al-Iraqiya television, “I recently visited Iran with Prime Minister [Ibrahim al-Jaafari], where we discussed these issues with Iranian officials. In particular, we told them forthright that Iran was meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq, since this is our country and we expect our neighbours to cooperate with us”.

Earlier this week, United States Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld renewed his criticism of Iran and Syria for harbouring the financiers and organisers of the insurgency in Iraq, and for failing to clamp down on fighters crossing in through their borders.