BAGHDAD. Api; 3:, Iran .and Iraq exchangecf nearly 900 prisoners of war late Thursday, the official Iraqi news agency reported. It appeared to be the first stage of a swap of some 6.000 prisoners announced by the two countries earlier in the day. reports AP.

The Iraqi agency said 800 Iraqis were freed by Iran at the al-Mundhariya border crossing, 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Simultaneously. Iraq released 62 Iranian prisoners.

The deputy Iraqi foreign minister. Riyad al-Qaysi. told the agency that more prisoners would be freed in due course.

The releases came as UN weapons inspectors wound down their first search of Saddam Hussein's palaces. UN arms experts Thursday focused on the "most important site." a Baghdad palace that houses the offices of Iraq's power centers, officials said.

Earlier Thursday, the Iraqi government-controlled newspaper, al-Zawra, said Iran

wpuld free 6,000 Iraqi prisoners

In Tehran, Iranian television quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying 5,592 Iraqi prisoners would be exchanged for 380 Iranians.

If such numbers are released, it will be the biggest prisoner exchange since 1990.

The release of prisoners from the 1980-88 war. in which at least 1 million people were killed or wounded, would mark a major step in the improvement of relations between the two countries. A decade after a UN-brokered cease-fire, animosity has persisted over the issue of prisoners.

A Red Cross spokeswoman in Geneva said the organization, which oversees the release of Iraqi prisoners, had sent 18 delegates to the border. The workers speak confidentially to the prisoners to verify tneir identities and check that they do want to return home.

Iraq has claimed it no longer holds Iranian prisoners, but Iran insists that it does. .