Iraq sends forces to disputed field

Ownership of the al-Fauqa oil fields has been disputed since the wells were built in 1974 [Reuters]

Iraq has deployed security forces to its southern border with Iran to monitor a disputed oil well seized by Iranian troops.

Iraqi authorities sent army and police forces to a staging ground about 1km from the well in the Fauqa oil field in southern Maysan province on Saturday, The Associated Press news agency reported, citing officials.

Baghdad says Iranian troops crossed the border into Iraqi territory a day earlier, taking control of well Number 4 and raising an Iranian flag.

The Iraqi government demanded that “Tehran pull back the armed men who occupied well Number 4″, and condemned the incident as “a violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.

But Iran has denied that it had violated Iraq’s sovereignty.

Iran’s Armed Forces Command issued a statement on Saturday making clear that, in Tehran’s view, there had been no incursion into Iraq as the oil well is within Iranian borders.

“Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran,” the statement said.

Well 4 is in the al-Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of oilfields which Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels.

Incursion denied

Ramin Mehmanparast, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, accused “external sources in Iraq” of working to damage relations between the governments in Tehran and Baghdad, the official IRNA news agency reported.

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And a senior Iranian MP also tried to play down the dispute.”The claim that Iran has occupied an Iraqi oil well is strongly rejected,” Alaeddin Borujerdi, head of parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, told IRNA.

The issue was “being examined through diplomatic channels,” he  said, blaming “foreign media for such propaganda.”

But Muhammad al-Hajj Hamud, Iraq’s deputy foreign minister, rejected Iranian claims on the well and called for an Iranian unit made up of around a dozen soldiers and technicians to be withdrawn.

“We summoned Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad [on Friday] to tell him that this attack is unacceptable and our ambassador to Tehran delivered a note to their foreign ministry to ask them to pull out their troops,” he said.

Hamud said it was the first time Well 4 had been taken over.

“In  the past, the Iranians would try to prevent our technicians from working on the well … by firing in their direction,” he said, adding Iraq had dug the well in 1974.