Iranian troops have withdrawn partially from a disputed oil area claimed by both Tehran and Baghdad, Iraqi and Iranian officials said Sunday, possibly defusing a border feud straining the two nations' delicate ties. Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said a group of Iranian troops who had taken over an oil well in a remote region along the Iran-Iraq border last week were no longer in control of the well, which Iraq considers part of its Fakka oilfield. “The Iranian flag has been lowered. The Iranian troops have pulled back 50 meters, but they have not gone back to where they were before. The Iraqi government asked for the troops to go back to where they were,” Dabbagh said. A border official in Iran said Iranian forces had returned to their original position after dismantling a barricade built by Iraqi soldiers near the disputed oil well. “Iraqi forces had erected the now disassembled barricade next to the No. 4 oil well in Fakka,” the official told Iran's state Press TV on condition of anonymity.
