Iraq hands over Iranian detainees
Updated on 09 July 2009
Iraq has handed over five Iranians, who had been held for two years by US forces, to the country's embassy in Baghdad.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "I have talked to them and delivered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's congratulatory message and we hope to have them in Iran soon."
Earlier, Iraqi authorities said the US military had handed the five over to them.
A White House spokesman said: "In compliance with the US-Iraq Security Agreement, the US has turned over five Iranian detainees at the request of the Iraqi government."
The detention of the Iranians - including officials US forces have accused of arming Shia Muslim militias at the height of Iraq's sectarian fighting - stoked tension between Tehran and Washington, also at odds over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
Iranian state television said three of the men were diplomats detained in a 2007 US raid in Iraq's northern city of Arbil.
They were suspected of being members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Qods force, which Washington says backs terrorists.
The others are "two Iranians kidnapped elsewhere in Iraq by the US occupation troops", an Iranian official said.
Last month's disputed presidential election in Iran has again frayed relations between Iran and the West, with Iranian officials accusing the US and Britain of interfering in its internal affairs.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, police used teargas to disperse pro-reform demonstrators gathered near Tehran University, a witness said.
"Police used teargas twice to disperse the crowd. There was also many Basij militia on motorbikes patrolling the area," the unnamed witness said.
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