Commander rejects tensions along Iran-Iraq borders

A senior Iranian commander on Tuesday dismissed media reports about tension alongside Iran-Iraq borders over a number of shared oil wells on the Fakka field.

“The colonial powers are seeking to take advantage of any minor development for advancing their ill-intended goals,” Commander of the Iranian Army Major General Ataollah Salehi said, calling the recent media reports on tension between the two neighboring countries as “untrue”.

“Iraq and Afghanistan are occupied by the colonial powers and these colonialists are trying to create disruption and trouble between the two neighboring countries, i.e. Iran and Iraq,” the commander noted.

He asserted that all Iranian and Iraqi forces are stationed at their border posts, rejecting the claims that Iranian military troops have been deployed in the oil field.

The Iranian commander made the remarks in response to the recent hype by some American and Arab media outlets which claimed that Iranian soldiers had crossed into the Iraqi territory and seized an Iraqi oil field.

Iran rejected claims that its armed forces had taken control of the oil well within Iraqi borders, stressing that the well in question is not located on Iraq’s soil.

Tehran had also earlier announced the Iranian troops are stationed in their border posts, and that the soldiers had never crossed into Iraq.

Iraq says that it dug oil wells on the Fakka field during the 1970s before the Iran-Iraq war. But Iran says the area near the well that its soldiers had occupied – known as Well No. 4 – is on the Iranian side of the border.