Iraqi general condemns Iranian threat of force, urges diplomacy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A senior Iraqi military official on Monday said the country will not allow anyone to threaten its security and safety, after a commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned Iraqi and Kurdish officials that they could launch cross-border assaults on opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.

“Iraq is one. We will not allow anyone to threaten its security and safety. For that purpose, if there are any form of disagreements or opinions from them [Iran], they can be fixed through the government and foreign ministry and through meetings. However when it comes to using force against Iraq this is definitely refused by a country that has its own sovereignty,” the spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command, Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji told Rudaw’s Hawraz Gulpi.

“We will try to overcome this through the government, the commander-in-chief, and the foreign ministry,” he added.

He was responding to comments made earlier in the day by Mohammed Pakpour, commander of IRGC’s ground forces, who warned local civilian populations to stay out of harm’s way in case Iran takes action against armed Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.

“Given the condition in the region and the possibility of a severe and decisive response by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the terrorist groups… nested in the northern Iraqi region, we call on the people of these regions to stay away from the bases of these terrorist groups so they do not come to any harm,” he said.

Several Iranian Kurdish armed opposition groups have bases in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains. They frequently clash with Iranian security forces in the Kurdish areas of western Iran. Iranian forces also periodically shell border areas with the Kurdistan Region.

In a joint statement, issued by the Cooperation Center of Iranian Kurdistan political parties, the Kurdish parties condemned Iran's threats and said they will hold Tehran responsible for any harm done to civilian populations and property, and the environment. The people living in the areas Iran has threatened, the parties said, are women and children.

They also claimed Iran’s goal is to destabilize the Kurdistan Region in general, part of what they said is a campaign against the Kurdish people. “The regime’s problem is with the stability and development of the Kurdistan Region,” they stated.

In late August, the IRGC clashed with an armed opposition group in Kurdistan province, claiming to kill a number of fighters who had crossed the border from the Kurdistan Region. Around the same time, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) said an official from Iran’s Basij paramilitary force was killed by an armed group, the Zagros Eagles.

Iran has struck the party’s Kurdistan Region bases with force in the past. In 2018, after several lethal clashes between Iranian forces and Kurdish groups, Iran fired ballistic missiles at the headquarters of two Kurdish opposition groups in the town of Koya, more than 100 km deep into the Kurdistan Region.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which has cordial relations with Tehran, has called on armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups not to launch attacks against neighboring countries and Iranian security forces from Kurdistan Region territory.

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