Iraqi defense minister asks Iran to return planes "now"
KUWAIT, Aug 4 (AFP) - Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan, engaged in a war of words with Iran, demanded in remarks published Wednesday that Tehran immediately return Iraqi planes entrusted to Iran ahead of the 1991 Gulf War.
"The 130 planes should be given back to Iraq now," Shaalan said in an interview with the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Anbaa.
The figure is less than what Iraqi officials had previously asked Iran to return, namely 113 military and 33 civilian planes entrusted to Tehran by the former regime of Saddam Hussein on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War.
Tehran has insisted that it was holding only 22 Iraqi planes and that it was ready to return them if asked by the United Nations.
In 1991, Iraq also sent four planes to Tunisia and six to Jordan.
Shaalan also accused Iran of "attempting to sabotage the demographic structure of Iraq and to denaturalise its national identity."
In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Shaalan said he had seen "clear interference in Iraqi issues by Iran" and accused Tehran of taking over some Iraqi border posts and sending spies and saboteurs into Iraq.
He said former fighters in Afghanistan had been helped by Iran to get into Iraq and that Iran was supporting "terrorism and bringing enemies into Iraq".
Iran has consistently denied charges it has supported anti-US insurgents in Iraq, against which it fought a 1980-1988 war that killed an estimated one million people.
Tehran rejected Shaalan's allegations on Tuesday, describing his statements as "contrary to the official message we get from Baghdad".
Despite lingering suspicions on both sides of the Iran-Iraq frontier, the interim government in Baghdad has talked of the possibility of establishing diplomatic ties with its neighbour.
http://www.iranmania.com/news/040804c.asp
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