Iraq Will Treat Prisoners of War in Accordance with Geneva Convention

Iraq will treat all prisoners of war in accordance with the norms of the Geneva convention, Ambassador of Iraq in Moscow Abbas Khalaf said in an interview with RIA Novosti on Monday.

He confirmed that two British pilots whose aircraft had been shot down by the air defence forces of Iraq had been taken prisoner the day before. "We will treat them according to the Geneva convention", the Ambassador said. Besides that, as Abbas Halaf stated, "new American prisoners of war have now appeared in Iraq".

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier stated in an interview with the CNN TV company that the Pentagon extremely resented the show of the American and British prisoners of war by TV. He called upon Baghdad to treat the U.S. prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva convention - in the same way, as he said, as the Americans treat the Iraqi prisoners of war.

Iraq earlier stated that he considered the Americans fighting in Iraq to be mercenaries, and, therefore, the Geneva convention did not apply to them.

The Iraqi Ambassador also stated that the Iraqi side intended to bury the killed American and British military at special cemeteries, "especially because there are already such cemeteries (for foreign servicemen) in Iraq", the Ambassador said.