TEHRAN, March 13: Iran and Iraq said on Thursday they would swap more than 1,200 prisoners next week, including all remaining Iraqis held since their 1980-88 invasion.

The neighbours, both labelled members of “an axis of evil” by US President George Bush, fought each other to a standstill in the war that killed a million people.

“The two parties will exchange 1,241 Iraqi prisoners of war and detainees and 349 Iranian detainees on Monday,” an Iranian government spokesman said.

“After the release of this group, there will be no more Iraqi prisoners held in Iran,” he added.

The Iraqi foreign ministry said in a statement that Iran would release 941 prisoners. It added that Iraq would release 349 Iranians on Monday and Tuesday.

“Iraq and Iran signed on Thursday morning an agreement including the commitment to release all Iraqi captives still detained in Iran,” it said. “Iraq will release Iranian prisoners in Iraq convicted of civil crimes, including crossing borders.”

The Iranian spokesman said some Iranians reportedly detained by Iraq for allegedly insulting President Saddam Hussein would be among the freed prisoners.

Iranian newspapers in November reported the arrest of Iranian tourists in Iraq, including a student leader.

Last year, the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it had supervised the repatriation of more than 97,400 prisoners of war from the Iran-Iraq conflict.

But the fate of thousands of combatants listed as missing in action remains a source of tension between the two countries.

“We will follow the fate of people who went missing during the war,” said the spokesman, adding that “the file of those missing in action will not be closed for us”.

The exchanges were expected to take place at a border point linking Khosravi, in western Iran, to Al Munthiriya, in Iraq.—Reuters