Iran denies it has moved border posts into Iraq

TEHRAN: Iran firmly denied on Thursday an accusation by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that it had moved some border posts several kilometres into Iraq. “I strongly deny it. Since before the American presence in Iraq until the present day there have been no changes in Iran’s border posts,” government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told Reuters. Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday there had been reports Iran had moved posts several kilometres inside Iraq along a 25-km stretch of their frontier. “Certainly that is behaviour that is not acceptable and they should be staying on their own side of the border,” he said. US officials, wary of predominantly Shi’ite Iran’s influence among Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim majority, have frequently accused Tehran of meddling in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iran vehemently denies the charges. Iran fought a bloody eight year war with Iraq that ended in 1988. But the two sides have yet to sign a formal peace treaty. Ramazanzadeh said Iran hoped to resolve border disputes through talks with Iraq once it had an independent government. —Reuters

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