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Iraq, Iran Agree To Demarcate Border


Iraqi coast guards patrol the waters of the Shatt al-Arab waterway in southern Iraq.
Iraqi coast guards patrol the waters of the Shatt al-Arab waterway in southern Iraq.
BAGHDAD -- Joint technical teams of Iraqi and Iranian experts have been formed to demarcate the two countries' 1,200 kilometer border.

Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammed Hajj Hammud told RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq that the teams, including professional surveyors, will soon start their work to place border signs and markers along the borders as defined by a 1913 agreement between Iraq and Iran.

Hammud pointed out that a delicate task of the joint technical teams is to demarcate the Shatt Al-Arab waterway after it changed its course due to natural causes.

The deputy foreign minister said that the United States, Britain, France, and NATO are training Iraqi forces to be able to effectively guard the border when U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Iraq and Iran fought an eight-year war in the 1980s triggered by a dispute over the Shatt Al-Arab waterway.
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