News-Info-Alerts

Re: Iran Frees Hundres of Iraqi POWs

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: March 20, 2002

Just another example of how easy it is for adversarial nations to hold long-term Prisoners of War.

"January 23 6:44 AM ET

Iran Frees Hundreds of Iraqi Prisoners of War
Iran-Iraq War Prisoners Released (Reuters)  

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has released since Monday 682 Iraqi prisoners captured during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war, completing the latest phase of prisoner exchanges, the official IRNA news agency said Wednesday.

It said the prisoners were handed over to Iraqi officials on the Iran-Iraq border at Khosravi, in the western Iranian province of Kermanshah.

Iraq's official news agency INA said 259 prisoners of war were handed over by Iran Wednesday, in the third wave of a program of prisoner releases.

Baghdad newspapers said Iran released 245 Iraqi prisoners on Tuesday and late Monday freed 188 Iraqi prisoners captured by Iranian forces during Shi'ite Muslim riots in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.

Those prisoners arrived at al-Munthiriya, 106 miles east of Baghdad, late Tuesday night. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy between the two sides' figures.

An Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday Tehran and Baghdad would also exchange the bodies of 1,183 Iraqis and 574 Iranians who were killed during the Iraq-Iran war.

An estimated 1 million Iranians and Iraqis were killed in that war.

The fate of thousands of prisoners of war and combatants listed as missing in action is one of the main issues blocking the normalization of ties between the two countries. "