US bid to cut Iran-Iraq border trade

US military forces stationed in Iraq have set up watch-towers near Iran’s border to scrutinize the extent of commercial dealings between the two neighboring nations.

The mayor of Iran’s western city of Mehran said the outposts in question are equipped with surveillance equipment and have been rigged up to monitor volume and nature of trade between Iran and Iraq with the specific aim of taking measures to reduce the amount of the bilateral border trade .

“According to our intelligence sources, US forces have been deployed in a market on the Iraqi side of the border, located straight across from a similar market in the Iranian border town of Mehran, have established these towers in an effort to screen Iranian exports at the Mehran border checkpoint,” said the mayor, Valiullah Hayati, on Wednesday.

“In the past few months, following tightened restrictions by Iraqi customs officials, the inflow of Iran’s non-oil exports [into Iraq] has sharply declined at the international and commercial Mehran border station,” Hayati noted.

The mayor attributed the recent reduction of Iranian border trade with Iraq to the current political instability in the country as well as the political pressure exerted by American authorities.

The Mehran border terminal, located 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Western provincial capital Ilam, is one of the busiest crossing points that handles the daily passage of about 5,000 Iranian pilgrims that travel to Iraq’s shrine cities and the traffic of over 700 truckloads of Iranian goods to the Arab nation.