Iraq president demands release of detained Iranian

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani slammed the US military on Saturday for detaining an Iranian official earlier this week and called for his "immediate" release.

"I am informing you (the US military) of our displeasure over the arrest of the Iranian civilian official without consulting the government of Kurdistan and that is a humiliation for the regional administration," Talabani said in a statement released by his office in Baghdad.

"You ignored our authority. I ask for his immediate release in order to maintain healthy relations between Iran and Kurdistan and for the prosperity of Kurdistan," added Talabani, who is himself a Kurd.

The US military seized the Iranian from a hotel in Sulaimaniyah in the northern Kurdish region on Thursday, charging that he was an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

But both Iran and the Kurdish regional government have insisted he was part of a visiting business delegation and demanded his immediate release.

"He was an official on a commercial mission with the knowledge of the federal government in Baghdad and the government of Kurdistan," Talabani said in a statement addressed to General David Petraeus, the head of US forces in Iraq, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Talabani said the arrest had triggered an angry reaction from Tehran which has "threatened to close its border with the Kurdish region if Mahmudi Farhadi, a civilian employee of Kermanshah (province in western Iran) is not released".

"This will handicap trade in the Kurdish region in this blessed month," he added in reference to Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar.
AFP

Uncle Ted sounds pissed