Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki insisted on Wednesday that a 32-year-old territorial accord with Iraq remained in force, despite the Iraqi president reportedly saying it was now void.
"A regime change cannot violate treaties... The Algiers accord is an official document registered with the United Nations. It has the force of a law and cannot be breached," he told reporters in Manama. Mottaki was responding to a question over remarks made by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday in which he reportedly described the 1975 Algiers accord as "obsolete".
"It was an agreement between (former Iraqi president) Saddam (Hussein) and the shah of Iran (ousted in 1979) and not between Iraq and Iran," Talabani said. The agreement provids for the free navigation of both countries in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which marks a natural frontier between the two.