Iran and Iraq hold border talks
Meeting of foreign ministers in Baghdad overshadowed by co-ordinated blasts in Anbar.
He said the meetings would be held between technical committees to determine the land and maritime borders separating the countries.
The meeting was held nearly a month after standoff between Iran and Iraq over their 1,400km-long border.
On December 18, 2009, Iraq’s state-owned South Oil company said about a dozen Iranian troops and technicians arrived at the Fauqa oil field, taken control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag.
They withdrew a few days later.
The incursion was one of the most serious incidents between the two neighbours since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, who fought a devastating 1980-1988 war against Iran.
Co-ordinated bombings
The Mottaki-Zebari meeting came against a backdrop of fresh attacks in Iraq.
Co-ordinated bombings targeted the homes of four Iraqi security officials, killing seven people and wounded six others, in Hiyt, a town in Anbar province, on Thursday.
The victims included relatives of an Iraqi army ani-terrorist special forces commander.
Attackers planted explosives around the bedrooms of the policemen in Hiyt, 60km west of Ramadi, the provincial capital, Lieutenant-Colonel Fadhil Nimrawi, the head of the town’s emergency response unit, said.
“At 3am, men planted bombs around the bedrooms of four houses belonging to members of the police force, including Major Walid al-Hiyti, the head of Hiyt’s anti-terror department,” Nimrawi said.
Al-Hiyti was seriously wounded and his father, mother, two sisters, brother and sister-in-law, as well as a lawyer, were killed, police said.
Nimrawi said several people had been arrested in connection with the attack, but declined to specify how many, citing security reasons.