“All five entry points on the border between Iran and the Kurdish region have been closed by the Iranian authorities from today (monday),” said Jamal Abdallah, spokesman of the Kurdish Regional Government.

The closure of the border came after the detention of Mahmudi Farhadi, a civilian official, who was arrested from a hotel in Sulaimaniyah on Thursday by US forces.

On Saturday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had demanded his immediate release, saying he was in Iraq as part of a trade delegation.

In a letter to the top US officials in Iraq, Talabani said Tehran had warned of closing the border if Farhadi was not freed. Talabani said the Iranian was a civilian official who had been visiting Iraq with the blessing of both the Kurdish regional government and the authorities in Baghdad.

In a stern statement addressed to General David Petraeus, the head of US forces in Iraq and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he said: “I am informing you of our displeasure over the arrest of the Iranian civilian official without consulting the government of Kurdistan. That is a humiliation for the regional administration,” said Talabani, who is himself a Kurd.

“You ignored our authority. I ask for his immediate release in order to maintain healthy relations between Iran and Kurdistan, and for the prosperity of Kurdistan.”

The US military charges that Farhadi was an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iran Prez in US
Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said on Monday there was “no war in the offing” between his country and the United States, AP reports from New York.

He told the CBS programme 60 Minutes: “It’s wrong to think that Iran and the US are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing.”