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Iraq Refuses to Turn Over Hijackers to Saudi Arabia
Iraq has firmly rejected a demand by Saudi Arabia to extradite the two Saudi hijackers who forced a Saudi passenger plane to land in Baghdad.
"We will never bargain on principles and will never give them up," said Iraqi Interior Minister Muhammad Ziman Abd al-Razzaq in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) on Wednesday.
"Any Arab national coming to Iraq, he is coming to his homeland," he was quoted as saying.
The Saudi government on Monday demanded the handover of the two hijackers being held in Baghdad, on the basis of an international convention outlawing hijacking and an anti-terrorism convention which both Saudi Arabia and Iraq had signed two years ago.
And it vowed that Riyadh will not compromise on their extradition to face justice.
The two Saudi security officers, who used a service revolver to hijack the Boeing 777 passenger plane, surrendered to Iraqi security authorities after forcing the plane to land late Saturday at the Saddam International Airport.
The plane was hijacked en route from the Saudi port city Jeddah to London.
The latest farce may further strain the already tense bilateral relations between the two Arab countries.
Iraq and Saudi Arabia have not been on good terms ever since the 1991 Gulf war, in which Riyadh joined the U.S.-led Western forces in driving Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
Bilateral ties have worsened as Iraq repeatedly accuses Saudi Arabia and Kuwait of being "full culprits" for allowing the U.S. and British warplanes to use their bases to patrol the so-called "no-fly zone" in southern Iraq.
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