Baghdad: Iraq and Iran will hold meetings from next week to formally mark their disputed border, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Thursday, after a stand-off between the two countries last month.
"There will be a meeting within a week between the two countries about the borders," Mottaki told a news conference in the Foreign Ministry in central Baghdad, while on a one-day trip to Iraq.
He added that in the following weeks, meetings would be held between technical committees from the two countries to determine the land and maritime borders separating the two countries.
On December 18, Iraq`s state-owned South Oil Co, said about a dozen Iranian troops and technicians had arrived at the Fauqa oil field, taken control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag. They eventually withdrew days later.
The takeover was one of the most serious incidents between the two neighbours since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein`s regime, which fought a devastating 1980-1988 war against Iran.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told lawmakers last month that Iran has been violating Iraq`s borders since 2006. The two countries share a 1,458-kilometre (910-mile) frontier.
Bureau Report
