Brigadier General Sherko Abdullah
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--Brigadier General Sherko Abdullah of Iraq's interior ministry says that they have reached a memorandum with their Iranian counterparts on tightening their stretch of the border against illegal crossing of people and the smuggling of goods.
This part of the border stretches from Biyara in the Hawraman region in Halabja province all the way down to Quratu crossing in the Garmiyan Region.
Some of the borders are official while others are semi-official.
Dozens of Kurds known as Kolbar [those who carry goods on their backs] are transporting goods between Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Region.
They have often been arrested by Iranian border guards, their horses and mules shot and their cargo seized, while several of these porters have been shot and killed by Iranian forces on accusations of smuggling in recent years.
The Kurdistan Region and Iran were said to be in the process of licencing porters to transport goods across their border.
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