[NYTr] Iran confirms closure of border with Iraqi Kurdistan

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Sep 24, 2009
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070924113931.9sgjylao.html

Iran confirms closure of border with Iraqi Kurdistan

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran on Monday confirmed it had closed its border with
the northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan in protest at the arrest last
week of an Iranian national.

"We have closed the border and we hope the Iraqi authorities will act
as quickly as possible to release our colleague," Esmaeel Najar, the
governor of Iran's northwestern Kurdistan province told AFP.

Mahmudi Farhadi was taken from a hotel in the regional capital
Sulaimaniyah on Thursday by US forces which accused him of being a
member of the covert operations section of Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards.

Iran however has insisted the man is a commerce official at the
governor's office in Iran's Kermanshah province and was travelling as a
member of a commercial delegation.

"We had said that if he was not freed rapidly, we would reconsider our
commercial ties" with Iraqi Kurdistan, added the governor.

Asked when the border would be reopened, he replied: "We hope that the
Iraqi authorities will act as swiftly as possible to free our
colleague."

Iraqi Kurdistan has land borders with Iran's West Azarbaijan, Kurdestan
and Kermanshah provinces.

                           ***

AP - Sep 24, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=OKTUL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Iran closes border with northern Iraq

By YAHYA BARZANJI
Associated Press Writer

 SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) -- Iran closed major border crossings with
northern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian
official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official
said.

At least four border gates have been closed and one remains open, the
governor of the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, Dana Ahmed Majeed,
told The Associated Press. The move threatens the economy of Iraq's
northern region - one of the country's few success stories.

In Tehran, the public relations department in Iran's Interior Ministry
said no decision had been taken to shut the border.

But Kurdish authorities said the Iranians began shutting down the
crossing points late Sunday near the border towns of Banjiwin, Haj
Omran, Halabja and Khanaqin.

The closings came four days after U.S. troops arrested an Iranian
official during a raid on a hotel in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast
of Baghdad.

U.S. officials said he was a member of the elite Quds force of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards that smuggles weapons into Iraq. But Iraqi
and Iranian leaders said he was in the country on official business and
with the full knowledge of the government.

"This closure from the Iranian side will have a bad effect on the
economic situation of the Kurdish government and will hurt the
civilians as well," said Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the autonomous
Kurdish government. "We are paying the price of what the Americans have
done by arresting the Iranian."

A U.S. military spokesman, Rear Adm. Mark Fox, also said Sunday that
Iran has smuggled advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American
troops, including the Misagh 1, a portable surface-to-air missile that
uses an infrared guidance system and could threaten U.S. aviation.

Iran has denied U.S. allegations that it is smuggling weapons to Shiite
militias in Iraq, a denial that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
reiterated in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday.

"We don't need to do that. We are very much opposed to war and
insecurity," said Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday to attend
the U.N. General Assembly. "The insecurity in Iraq is detrimental to
our interests."

But the U.S. insists it has evidence to the contrary. On Monday, U.S.
troops killed one suspected militant and detained four others said to
be involved in kidnapping operations run by Iranian-backed Shiite
militias in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, the military said.

The latest detention of an Iranian official also has taxed relations
between Iraq and the United States, already strained after the shooting
deaths of 11 civilians at Nisoor Square in Baghdad on Sept. 16 -
allegedly at the hands of Blackwater USA security contractors.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said the Blackwater incident was
among several "serious challenges to the sovereignty of Iraq" by the
company, adding he would take the case up in discussions with President
Bush in New York, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Blackwater denies its guards fired illegally and says they were
defending themselves from armed insurgents.

Al-Maliki also condemned the Iranian's arrest, saying he understood the
man, who has been identified as Mahmudi Farhadi, had been invited to
Iraq. U.S. officials said he was a member of the elite Quds force of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards accused of smuggling weapons into Iraq.

"The government of Iraq is an elected one and sovereign. When it gives
a visa, it is responsible for the visa," al-Maliki told The Associated
Press in an interview Sunday in New York. "We consider the arrest ...
of this individual who holds an Iraqi visa and a (valid) passport to be
unacceptable."

Last week, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, demanded the Iranian's
release and warned in a letter to America's top commander in Iraq, Gen.
David Petraeus, and the U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, that Iran had
threatened to close its border with Iraq's Kurdish region over the case.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday
that Farhadi was in charge of border transactions in western Iran and
went to Iraq on an official invitation.

The U.S. military said the suspect was being questioned about "his
knowledge of, and involvement in," the transportation of EFPs and other
roadside bombs from Iran into Iraq and his possible role in the
training of Iraqi insurgents in Iran. No charges against the Iranian
have been filed yet.

In more violence Monday, an Iraqi security guard was killed and three
others were wounded when a car bomb exploded near the convoy of a local
security official near the northern city of Kirkuk, police Brig. Gen.
Sarhat Qadir said.

[Associated Press writers Bushra Juhi and Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad
contributed to this report.]

© 2007 The Associated Press.