SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AFP) — Iran's border closure is costing the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq one million dollars a day, the regional administration said on Wednesday as a US general defended the arrest that led to the shutdown.
"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.
"The Kurdistan region is losing one million dollars per day because of the closure," Raouf 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.
The US military charges that Farhadi is an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, accused by American commanders of helping Shiite militias involved in Iraq's bloody sectarian conflict.
"We have an obligation, it's our responsibility to operate against such individuals," US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner told a news conference in Baghdad on Wednesday.
"He's a Quds Force officer who has been directly involved with a network that is providing resources, in training and funding sophisticated weapons that are targeting Iraqi people, Iraqi forces and coalition forces," said Bergner.
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.
"I have a large amount of goods that are supposed to go from Tehran to Sulaimaniyah but they are stuck on the road," said 45-year-old merchant Karwan Hasan.
"I will lose a lot of money if my goods stay on the road, because I am committed to bring goods that are raw materials in making foodstuffs," he added.
Farhadi's arrest by the US has also drawn the fire of Iraqi 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.
"We have an obligation to share and inform on what we have on this individual. We have updated the Iraqi leaders on what we have learnt about this officer, and I think there is an increase of awareness in the government of Iraq about who this individual really was and exactly what he was involved in."
The responsibility of the US military, the general added, was to "take the necessary means to improve, to help the government achieve a safe and secure environment."
There was an understanding in the Iraqi government, he added, "that there is Quds Force operation in Iraq that is fuelling Special Groups and other extremists, that are providing sophisticated weapons with destabilising effects," he said.
"It is clear that Quds Force officers are going to operate in Iraq. We have an obligation, it's our responsibility to operate against those who belong to these networks."
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