Iran has closed its border crossing points with the Iraqi northern autonomous region on Monday, protesting U.S. detention of an Iranian official, a Kurdish government spokesman said.
"Iran has closed all of its five border crossing points with the Kurdistan Iraq region," spokesman Jamal Abdullah told reporters.
The Iranian move came after U.S. troops detained an Iranian official at a hotel in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah on Thursday.
The U.S. military still claims that the Iranian national was member of the al-Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and he was an arms smuggler "involved in transporting improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators into Iraq."
"We will contact the Iranian government to abolish this decision through our representative in Tehran. We will also urge the Iraqi government to contact the Iranian government," Abdullah said.
On Saturday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani demanded an immediate release for the Iranian official, saying that neighboring Iran has threatened to close its border with his Kurdish region.
Talabani's statement said that U.S. troops carried out the detention without prior knowledge or cooperation of the Kurdish region's government.
"This amounts to an insult and a violation of its rights and authority," said the statement quoting a letter sent by Talabani to America's top commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Source: Xinhua
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