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Iran, Iraq seek diplomatic end to border dispute
[Al Arabiya Latest] Tehran and Baghdad pledged on Saturday to pursue a diplomatic solution to a border dispute over accusations that Iranian troops seized an oil well inside Iraq.The Iranian flag was flying over the disputed oil well in a remote desert area southeast of Baghdad early on Saturday and an Iranian military tent was pitched nearby. "We call for calm and for a peaceful solution to this matter, far from any military escalation," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters Television in Baghdad. Iran on Saturday acknowledged its takeover of the oil well but insisted the well lies on its land, playing down the fallout from the first such incident since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran," Iran's armed forces command said in a statement, quoted by Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam satellite television. On Friday, Iraq's state-owned South Oil Co in the southeastern city of Amara said "an Iranian force arrived at the field ... It took control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag even though the well lies inside Iraqi territory." Posted by: Fred 2009-12-20 |
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