Iran no longer holds any Iraqi prisoners from the two countries' bloody eight-year war and all those soldiers still unaccounted for are considered missing in action, Iraqi Defence Minister Sa'adoun Al Dulaimi said yesterday.
Al Dulaimi's comments came after his visit to Iran this month, during which he told the Iranians that Saddam Hussain was the aggressor in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war that left one million people dead.
"I regrettably say to those [families] that there isn't a single prisoner in Iran. Those who were considered prisoners are now considered missing," Al Dulaimi told a news conference. He did not elaborate.
Iranian officials have also declared there are no more Iranian prisoners in Iraq and that all captives were exchanged in May 2003 following the fall of Saddam's regime.
Thousands of Iraqi and Iranian soldiers went missing during the war and until recently they were a source of tension between the two countries.
Iran and Iraq have exchanged thousands of prisoners and remains of dead soldiers since the war ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire. The International Committee of the Red Cross had been trying to repatriate all the remaining POWs since 1998, but says it doesn't know how many people were held.
Al Dulaimi said that the two countries agreed last week to set up a committee to guarantee security on their border and "to prevent any infiltration by terrorist elements".
Iraqi officials used to accuse Iran of allowing foreign fighters to cross into the country, a claim the Iranians denied. During Saddam's rule, Iran said that members of its opposition group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, used to cross from Iraq to carry out attacks at home.
