Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, on a visit to Baghdad, called Saturday for the two countries to respect the 1975 Algiers agreement which fixed their borders, Iranian state television said, reported (AFP)
"It's through respect for the Algiers agreement that we'll reach a true peace," Kharazi said in a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the television reported.
The agreement was signed in 1975 between the Iran's then shah and Saddam, who was vice president at the time.
The accord ended Iranian support for Kurdish rebels in Iraq in return for a sharing of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, known to Iranians as the Arvand Roud, which forms part of the two states' border and runs into the Gulf.
Saddam as president tore up the agreement in September 1980, calling for the Shatt to be fully "Arab and Iraqi". Just days later, Iraqi forces invaded southwestern Iran at the outset of an eight-year year between the countries.
But Saddam said he accepted Iranian calls to reinstate the Algiers agreement and share the waterway in August 1990. Iraq then promptly redeployed troops stationed on the Iranian border to recently invaded Kuwait – (AFP)
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