BAGHDAD Iraq and Iran agreed Wednesday to settle quickly and definitively the prisoners of war files from their 1980-1988 conflict, the official news agency INA announced. The delegations agreed on a final mechanism to settle quickly and definitively the files on prisoners of war and those missing in action from the conflict, it said. The agreement came at the end of a week-long visit by an Iranian delegation led by General Abdollah Najafi, head of the Iranian Committee on Prisoners of War. Najafi has met Defense Minister General Sultan Hashem Ahmad and Foreign Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahaf.

Iran and Iraq reinitiated an exchange of prisoners in April, with the repatriation of 5,584 Iraqi POWs in return for 319 Iranians. Earlier in June, the remains of almost 200 soldiers killed in the war were also exchanged. (AFP)