Iranian forces have reportedly
raised the Iranian flag over
two more disputably Iraqi oil wells, Numbers 11 and 13 at the Al-Faqa oilfield, a Maysan governorate official said last Wednesday.
This incursion follows a previous occupation of well Number 4 Friday, December 18. Iranian forces reportedly removed their flag and withdrew 50 meters from Number 4; however, they remain on Iraqi soil, according to Iraqi officials. Iraqi forces stood 300 meters away.
The Islamic Republic says nothing is happening at the well, which they say is on Iranian land. Iraq says the well was dug by Iraq’s oil company in the 1970s and is definitely in Iraq, and they expect that a planned demarcation of the border will resolve the dispute.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari emphasized that this oil well problem is not new.
“This has been going on since 2006,” Zebari said. “There were violations in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Engineers from the Oil Ministry went to check these wells. They were harassed by Iranians, who fired on them, arrested them and prevented them from carrying out their work.”
He said he wasn’t interested in a shooting incident with the Iranians: “Our duty in the Foreign Ministry is to solve problems and crises, and not to complicate them.”
The incident fed anti-Iranian sentiment in Iraq. A Wednesday telecast showed hundreds of citizens demonstrating against Iran in Baghdad’s Al-Mansur neighborhood.
“The demonstrators raised Iraqi flags and chanted slogans condemning the Iranian occupation of Iraqi oil wells, and called on the government to declare a firm position against this occupation, saying that if its silence persisted, it would be approving the occupation,” the television report said.
The oilfield, Aswat al-Iraq reported, was discovered in 1974. It was left alone until the border was later demarcated. Joint plans for developing the field were ended in 1980 by the Iraq-Iran war. The border markers were destroyed during the war.
Iraqi Oil Minister Hossain ash-Shahristani said the border in the area has not been re-demarcated because “the Iranians are vacillating on the grounds that there are mines in the region that must be removed before marking the border.”