Iran border closure costs Kurdish region a million a day: Iraq

[Robbien]

Source: AFP


"There are goods costing millions waiting across the border," Kurdistan Regional Government trade minister Mohammed Raouf told AFP, referring to the Haj Umran frontier post near the northern Iraqi city of Arbil. Efforts were now under way to redirect the trucks massing at the border, many carrying frozen goods such as chicken, meat and eggs, through neighbouring Turkey into Iraq, he said.


On Monday Iran said it was closing its frontier with Iraq in protest at the detention last week of Iranian national Mahmudi Farhadi by US troops during a raid in the Kurdish Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah.

. . .

Iran has made clear that it regards Iraqi sovereignty as at stake in Farhadi's continued custody, after both the regional and national authorities of Iraq said he had been visiting with their consent.

Angry Kurdish merchants in Arbil said they were forced to search for other sources of food and electronic goods, the main items imported from Iran, possibly in Turkey or Syria.

. . .

Farhadi's arrest by the US has also drawn the fire of Kurdistan President Jalal Talabani, who called the move illegal and demanded his release.

"We have great respect for President Talabani and the Iraqi leadership," Bergner said on Wednesday.



Read more: http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=070926153709.2uaxlqo9.php

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Even being the Kurdish friends of this administration doesn't protect them from loss and destruction these days.