Thread: Iran Closes Border With Northern Iraq

Iran Closes Border With Northern Iraq
Monday, September 24, 2007 11:16 AM EDT
The Associated Press
By YAHYA BARZANJI Associated Press Writer
http://broadband.zoomtown.com
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — Iran closed major border crossings with northeastern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official said.

Five border gates were closed starting Sunday night and continuing Monday morning, leaving travelers and cargo stranded, according to officials and witnesses.

The move threatens the economy of Iraq's northern region — one of the country's few success stories — and also appears aimed at driving a wedge between Iraq and the Americans at a time of friction over a deadly shooting in Baghdad involving the security firm Blackwater USA.

In Tehran, the public relations department at the Interior Ministry said no decision had been made to shut the border.

However, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported that five border points had been closed to protest the detention of the Iranian, who has been identified as Mahmudi Farhadi. He was arrested four days ago during a raid on a hotel in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The closure will continue until Farhadi's unconditional release, the Mehr agency quoted Ismail Najjar, general governor of Iranian Kurdistan province, as saying.

U.S. officials said Farhadi 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.

Sulaimaniyah Gov. Dana Ahmed Majeed told The Associated Press the move affected crossing points near the border towns of Panjwin, Haj Omran, Halabja and Khanaqin. A crossing at the town of Shena had remained open, but the mayor of the nearby town of Qalat Diza, Hussein Ahmed, said that gate was closed about 10 a.m.

Darseem Ahmed, an official at the gate near Haj Omran, 225 miles northeast of Baghdad, said up to 400 trucks use that crossing point daily.

A Kurdish merchant from Sulaimaniyah said he had three trucks loaded with construction materials stuck on the Iranian side of the border near Panjwin.

"They didn't allow them to cross, they closed the gate," Khalid Aman Sulaiman said, expressing concern the move would cause prices of imported products to spike. He said he would consider bringing the goods across illegal routes if the border points don't open within a week.

Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the autonomous Kurdish government, said the Iranian move "will have a bad effect on the economic situation of the Kurdish government and will hurt the civilians as well."

"We are paying the price of what the Americans have done by arresting the Iranian," he said.

Abdullah said the regional government had asked the central government to contact Iranian officials in Baghdad to stress that Kurdish authorities had no role in the detention.

"If this closure continues it will have an effect on the historical relations between the Kurdish government and the Iranian state," Abdullah added.

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" 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, one of three companies hired by the State Department to protect U.S. diplomats and other Western civilians.

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 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Blackwater, of Moyock, N.C., denies its guards fired illegally and says they were defending themselves from armed insurgents.

Al-Maliki also condemned Farhadi's arrest, saying he understood the man had been invited to 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 AP 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 U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker that Iran had threatened to close its border with Iraq's Kurdish region over the case — a move that would cause considerable damage to trade in the prosperous Kurdish region.

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 violence Monday, at least 19 people were reported killed or found dead nationwide. The deadliest attack was a suicide truck bombing that struck an Iraqi checkpoint near the northern city of Tal Afar, killing three security forces and three civilians and wounding 16 other people, said Mayor Najim Abdullah.

A woman and her 8-year-old son also were killed in a mortar attack in northeastern Baghdad, police said.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, said a woman who was the only confirmed case of cholera in Baghdad had died Sunday. That brought the number of deaths from the disease in the country to 11.

A country closing it's borders?? Say it aint so..

I heard this on CNN, and wondered: WOW!!! A country announces that it was closing it's border, then actually sends in troops to do it quickly!! The other country complains Closed country says "It's our country...screw you!! Hhmmmmmmmmm, So why can't we ??