...a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said...
I would treat with caution.
...a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said...
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Offshore wrote:Probably agents of Halliburton.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini called the U.S. action an act of ``interference'' in Iraq's internal affairs and ``inconsistent'' with the responsibilities of U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq.
Saadi Othman, an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told British Broadcasting Corp. television that the incident was ``regrettable'' and had ``nothing to do'' with President Bush's remarks on Tuesday, when he lashed out at Iran for meddling in Iraq's affairs and fomenting instability here.
Bas wrote:did nobody notice that these Iranians have been released, because they were there on invitation of the Iraqi government? (they were representatives of the Iranian government department for Energy)
March 2 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini announced on Sunday that Iran and Iraq are to review the issue of the two countries' joint oil wells, the official IRNA news agency reported.
He told reporters during his weekly press briefing that a joint committee, to be formed in the next two months, will discuss the joint oil wells issue.
On the activities of Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO) members in Iraq, he said that the MKO members should leave Iraq according to the decision made by the Iraqi government.
As to Iran's allocation of a one-billion-dollar loan to Iraq, he said the amount will be spent on projects being carried out by Iranian companies.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman also pointed out that the current visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq is an indication of Iran's honesty in supporting the Iraqi government.
The objective of Ahmadinejad's visit is to create convergence among regional states and to prevent interference of foreign states in domestic affairs of the regional countries, he added.
In March 1984, the tanker war entered its second phase when Iraq initiated sustained naval operations in its self-declared 1,126-kilometer maritime exclusion zone, extending from the mouth of the Shatt al Arab to Iran's port of Bushehr. In 1981 Baghdad had attacked Iranian ports and oil complexes as well as neutral tankers and ships sailing to and from Iran; in 1984 Iraq expanded the so-called tanker war by using French Super-Etendard combat aircraft armed with Exocet missiles.
In March 1984 an Iraqi Super Etendard fired an Exocet missile at a Greek tanker south of Khark Island. Until the March assault, Iran had not intentionally attacked civilian ships in the Gulf.Neutral merchant ships became favorite targets, and the long-range Super-Etendards flew sorties farther south. Seventy-one merchant ships were attacked in 1984 alone, compared with forty-eight in the first three years of the war. Iraq's motives in increasing the tempo included a desire to break the stalemate, presumably by cutting off Iran's oil exports and by thus forcing Tehran to the negotiating table. Repeated Iraqi efforts failed to put Iran's main oil exporting terminal at Khark Island out of commission, however.
The new wave of Iraqi assaults, however, led Iran to reciprocate. In April 1984, Tehran launched its first attack against civilian commercial shipping by shelling an Indian freighter. Iran attacked a Kuwaiti oil tanker near Bahrain on May 13 and then a Saudi tanker in Saudi waters five days later, making it clear that if Iraq continued to interfere with Iran's shipping, no Gulf state would be safe. Most observers considered that Iraqi attacks, however, outnumbered Iranian assaults by three to one. Iran's retaliatory attacks were largely ineffective because a limited number of aircraft equipped with long-range antiship missiles and ships with long-range surface-to-surface missiles were deployed. Moreover, despite repeated Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, Iran itself depended on the sea-lanes for vital oil exports.
These sustained attacks cut Iranian oil exports in half, reduced shipping in the Gulf by 25 percent, led Lloyd's of London to increase its insurance rates on tankers, and slowed Gulf oil supplies to the rest of the world; moreover, the Saudi decision in 1984 to shoot down an Iranian Phantom jet intruding in Saudi territorial waters played an important role in ending both belligerents' attempts to internationalize the tanker war. Iraq and Iran accepted a 1984 UN-sponsored moratorium on the shelling of civilian targets, and Tehran later proposed an extension of the moratorium to include Gulf shipping, a proposal the Iraqis rejected unless it were to included their own Gulf ports.
Iraq began ignoring the moratorium soon after it went into effect and stepped up its air raids on tankers serving Iran and Iranian oil-exporting facilities in 1986 and 1987, attacking even vessels that belonged to the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Iran responded by escalating its attacks on shipping serving Arab ports in the Gulf. As Kuwaiti vessels made up a large portion of the targets in these retaliatory raids, the Kuwaiti government sought protection from the international community in the fall of 1986. The Soviet Union responded first, agreeing to charter several Soviet tankers to Kuwait in early 1987. Washington, which has been approached first by Kuwait and which had postponed its decision, eventually followed Moscow's lead. United States involvement was sealed by the May 17, 1987, Iraqi missile attack on the USS Stark, in which thirtyseven crew members were killed. Baghdad apologized and claimed that the attack was a mistake. Ironically, Washington used the Stark incident to blame Iran for escalating the war and sent its own ships to the Gulf to escort eleven Kuwaiti tankers that were "reflagged" with the American flag and had American crews. Iran refrained from attacking the United States naval force directly, but it used various forms of harassment, including mines, hit-and-run attacks by small patrol boats, and periodic stop-and-search operations. On several occasions, Tehran fired its Chinese-made Silkworm missiles on Kuwait from Al Faw Peninsula. When Iranian forces hit the reflagged tanker Sea Isle City in October 1987, Washington retaliated by destroying an oil platform in the Rostam field and by using the United States Navy's Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) commandos to blow up a second one nearby.
TheDude wrote:And there's more, I didn't want to quote the whole thing and add too much clutter. Pretty insane stuff.
Denny wrote:Don't the Iranians realize they have no place sticking their nose in Iraq's business?
All I can say, it is too bad that Iran cannot learn from history, and pattern itself after the experience of the United States, which has done so much, in places like the Middle East and Latin America, to selflessly promote self determination and avoid unwanted interference with the internal policies of these independent nations.
Iranian troops have entered southern Iraqi territory and taken control of an oil well, reports say.
An Iraqi official played down the incident, saying the area was abandoned and right on a disputed border section.
Iranian soldiers crossed the border and raised an Iranian flag over the Fakkah oil field, a US military spokesman told the AFP news agency.
Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister confirmed the Iranians stayed in Iraq and were in control of the well.
Earlier it was reported that they had withdrawn back across the border.
Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji initially told the Reuters news agency the reports of the Iranian incursion were not true.
But Mr Khafaji later confirmed the incursion had taken place, and said 11 Iranians had dug-in at the oil well and had not left.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8420774.stm
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