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Iran Ready to Mend Ties With Iraq: Spokesman
Iran on Monday reaffirmed its readiness to remove the barriers stone-walling normalization of ties with neighboring Iraq, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iran has said many times that it is ready to take necessary steps to find a solution to the problems with Iraq, above all, the issue of prisoners of war (POWs), if the Iraqi side shows its political will, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said at a press conference here.
Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year bloody war from 1980 to 1988, costing each side some 1 million lives. Though 13 years have passed since the end of the war, the two sides have still accused each other of holding thousands of POWs.
Asefi said that "lack of cooperation on part of the Iraqi officials" is the main cause behind a halt in exchange of POWs between the two neighbors.
"If the Iraqi government intimates its readiness, the Iranian government is ready to cooperate in this field as it has thus far shown its goodwill," he added.
Iran and Iraq have yet to sign a formal peace treaty ending the war. The POW issue and the presence of opposition groups on each other's territory are among the main obstacles to a normalization of bilateral ties.
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