The Iraqi government has still not provided Iran with any information on the fate of 3,000 Iranian prisoners of war held in Iraqi jails, an Iranian official said on Wednesday.
“The Iraqi government [has] so far presented no explanation, whatsoever, regarding the fate of 3,000 Iranian PoWs,” said the head of the Iranian army's committee for POWs and MIAs, Brigadier General Abdollah Najafi.
Speaking at a ceremonial service to commemorate the POWs, MIAs and war-disabled veterans of the eight-year Iraqi imposed war, the general said that Iran had presented a scheme for cooperation with Iraq, based on which both countries were to present each other with the names of the dead or living soldiers of their former foe, reported the official Iranian news agency (IRNA).
Iraq, too, welcomed Iran's initiative, he added.
"We have still not received any reply to that initiative from Iraq's side in that regard," said Najafi.
The Iranian military official in charge of POW issues said that Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, too, announced readiness to begin negotiations with Iraq in this regard a couple of months ago, but that initiative did not work with the said regime either.
General Najafi further said that Iran had unilaterally freed 12,000 Iraqi POWs during the course of the past seven years, while Iraq had during the same period freed merely 400 Iranian PoWs, said the agency.
The number of Iranians killed during the eight-year war with Iraq is 200,000 according to official, who criticized the international community's "double standard" in dealing with the Iranian POWs in Iraq, compared to the Kuwaiti PoWs there, said the agency – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
