Iraq accuses Iran of breaking truce

Differences with Iran remain despite a thaw

Iraq has lodged a protest with the United Nations claiming that Iran has violated ceasefire agreements reached at the end of the two countries' war in the 1980s.

The Iraqi ambassador to the UN, Mohammad al-Douri, said Iran had violated agreements more than 40 times between February and 15 May this year.

Iran-Iraq war

Sparked in September 1980 as Saddam Hussein abrogates a 1975 treaty with Iran

Iraqi advance degenerates into war of attrition, finally ended by truce on 20 August 1988

In all, about one million killed and millions more displaced

Alleged violations included ''flights by Iranian helicopters over a number of Iraqi sites and building sand barriers and erecting new towers''.

Baghdad also accuses Tehran of seizing Iraqi vehicles and firing on Iraqi troops and injuring civilians.

In the past, Iraq has accused Iran of providing refuge for Shi'ite dissidents who mount attacks in southern Iraq.

Iran, for its part, accuses Baghdad of arming the exiled Iranian People's Mujahedeen organisation and providing it with military camps along its border.

The two nations have still to sign a formal peace treaty 14 years after the end of the conflict.

The slaughter was reminiscent of the First World War trenches

A thaw in relations began in 2000 with an agreement to tackle differences.

However, many problems remain, including the repatriation of prisoners-of-war and the question of who pays war reparations.

Baghdad also wants the return of Iraqi war planes and civilian aircraft grounded in Iran since the end of the Gulf War of 1992.