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Issue Date: March 20, 1981

Iran- War: Islamic Peace Mission Fails

Military Developments Iraq Offers to Arm Iran's Minorities Iraqi Communists Assail War

The head of a nine-member peace mission of the Islamic Conference that had visited Teheran and between Feb. 28 and March 2 acknowledge March 12 the group's failure to achieve a cease-fire in the Iranian-Iraqi war. [See 1981 Iran-Iraq War: Islamic Peace Mission]

Habib Chatti, general secretary of the conference, said the mission had failed because both sides had insisted on their own terms for ending the conflict. Nevertheless, Chatti said the mission would continue its efforts and it had been assured by Iran and Iraq that they wished to end the fighting.

Iraq March 10 had reiterated its rejection of the Islamic Conference's proposals. Foreign Minister Saadun Hamadi said Baghdad's terms remained nonnegotiable-- Iran's recognition of Iraqi sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

In a comment of its own, Baghdad radio said a truce when Iraqi forces "are moving from one victory to another will only play into the hands of the Persian regime in Teheran."

Military Developments

The collapse of the Islamic Conference's peace mission was followed by an increase in fighting.

Iran reported that Iraqi missile attacks March 11 killed 27 residents in Ahwaz and Dizful. The attack on Ahwaz forced thousands of people to flee the capital of oil-producing Khuzistan province.

An Iraqi communique March 12 said 197 Iranian soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours and that Iraqi naval units had sunk an Iranian boat carrying fuel in the Shatt al-Arab.

Iraq reported March 18 that fighting that day had caused the highest casualties inflicted against Iranian forces in weeks. A Baghdad communique said 223 Iranian soldiers had died in the Gilan-Gharb Heights and in the Chaghalvand Heights, scene of the fiercest battles. The Iranian losses in the two battles brought to 364 the total number of Iranians slain in the previous 24 hours, according to Iraq.

In previous action, Iraq forces March 7 carried out air strikes against Ilam and Khurramshahr and launched missile strikes against Susangird and Dizful, inflicting many civilian losses in Susangird, Iran said.

Iran also reported that the Iraqis had opened a new battlefront well to the north of previous military zones, in the area of Pranshahr in West Azerbaijan province.

Both sides March 9 carried out air and artillery attacks, with Ahwaz coming under Iraqi missile pounding for the second consecutive day. Civilian casualties in Ahwaz were said to be high.

An Iraqi communique reported the killing of 170 Iranian soldiers in air and ground actions in the previous 24 hours.

Iraq Offers to Arm Iran's Minorities

Iraqi President March 14 offered to arm Iranian minorities opposed to central government rule in Teheran. Most of them resided in areas bordering Iraq, some of which had been occupied by Iraqi troops.

Addressing Iraqi troops before they departed for the front, Hussein said Iraq was "ready to extend all types of aid including guns to those Iranian people so they may achieve their national rights and establish good neighborly relations with Iraq."

Hussein specifically cited the non-Persian people of Khuzistan, Baluchistan and Azerbaijan and the Kurds.

Iraq's defense minister, Lt. Gen. Talfah, had met with a Kurdish minority leader in January, reportedly to arrange for the shipment of Iraqi arms to the Kurdish rebels battling Iranian revolutionary guards.

Iraqi Communists Assail War

Iraqi Communist Party leader Aziz Mohammed Feb. 28 denounced Iraq's war with Iran as a "ruthless military adventure."

Speaking in Moscow, Mohammed called on Iraq to withdraw from territory occupied in the fighting. He declared: "Thousands of sons of our fatherland are dying in the war, the economy and major industrial projects our people's labor has created over the decades are being destroyed, and living conditions of the broad masses of the people are getting worse."

Mohammed, whose address was published March 2 in the Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda, accused the Iraqi government of having launched a "campaign of the cruelest repressions and persecutions" against Iraqi communists, as well as "against democratic forces of the country and against the Kurdish people." © 2011 Facts On File News Services

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