Gulf deal fragile

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 10

Gulf deal fragile

NZPA-AP Manama Iran and Iraq appeared to be observing their agreement to stop attacks on civilians, but the Gulf combatants traded warlike words and both sides suggested the agreement was not likely to work for long. The Foreign Ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council gathered in Saudi Arabia to consider ways to safeguard oil tankers calling on Gulf ports. An Iraqi field commander said both his Army and Iran’s seemed to be abiding by the ban on shelling of civilian targets after a last-

minute barrage on cities and towns just before the United Nations-brokered agreement took effect.

“The cease-fire (on civilian areas) has nothing to do with the war itself, and there will be no talks on the war,” the Iranian Parliament Speaker, Hojatoleslam Hashemi Rafsanjani said after meeting the Supreme Defence Council. General Maher Abdul Rasheed, commander of the Iraqi Army’s Third Corps, said the “cease of attacks on residential targets is holding.” But General Rasheed, talking to foreign reporters in his southern Iraqi com-

mand post, added that he did not believe the ceasefire was going to last. A communique released by the General Command of the Iraqi Armed Forces, said Basra and the central border towns of Khanaquin and Mandali were shelled by the Iranians before the halt went into effect. Four civilians were wounded and 12 houses demolished, it said.

Iraqi border gunners and combat patrols, meanwhile, kept attacks on Iranian “military positions” across the frontline, killing six Iranian soldiers in the northern sector of the war region.