Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Saturday demanded the U.S. military to release an Iranian who was arrested by U.S. troops two days ago.
Talabani made the demand in a message addressed Saturday to General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Baghdad, according to media reports.
In the message, the Iraqi head of state called for an " immediate" release of the Iranian civilian official, while expressing resentment over the arrest without consulting the local government of Kurdistan.
The U.S. military announced on Thursday that its troops arrested an officer from the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force in Iraq's northern city of Sulaimaniyah.
"Contrary to recent diplomatic initiatives, this individual has been involved in transporting improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators into Iraq," the military said in a statement.
"Intelligence reports also indicate he was involved in the infiltration and training of foreign terrorists in Iraq," said the statement.
But a spokesman from Iraq's Kurdish regional government noted that U.S. troops detained an Iranian businessman who is visiting Iraq within a commercial delegation.
Talabani also told the U.S. military that the detained Iranian "was an official on a commercial mission with the knowledge of the federal government in Baghdad and the government of Kurdistan."
He called for his immediate release in order to maintain healthy relations between Iran and Kurdistan and in the interest of Kurdistan.
The arrest has 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," Talabani said in the message.
Iran on Thursday strongly condemned the arrest of its national by U.S. troops in Iraq, saying "such an action by U.S. forces is a violation of international conventions and aims to destroy the ties between Iran and Iraq."
Iranian Foreign Ministry noted in a statement that "the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad has handed over a protest note to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry" over the arrest.
Source: Xinhua
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