Iraqi PM, Kurdistan Region President reject foreign attacks during meeting

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The president of the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday met with the Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad, during which both sides emphasized the importance of cooperation in facing repeated violations on Iraq’s sovereignty.

According to a joint statement from Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s and President Nechirvan Barzani, one of the topics of the meeting focused on discussing security on the Iraqi border areas.

“They emphasized cooperation to protect Iraq's sovereignty, reject repeated violations, and work to prevent using Iraqi territory as a platform for attacking any neighboring country,” the statement read.

The meeting comes as the Kurdistan Region’s borders have become an arena of instability with Turkish bombardment in the north and Iranian drone and missile attacks coming from the east.

Turkey launched an aerial operation, code-named Claw-Sword, early Sunday, targeting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region’s mountainous areas, mostly Sulaimani province, and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria. One day later, Iran attacked Iranian-Kurdish armed groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and Komala, in the Region’s Erbil and Sulaimani provinces with missiles and drones. Both campaigns have claimed the lives of several people, including civilians.

The Iraqi foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday that it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns the Iranian bombardment of the Kurdistan region of Iraq with drones and missiles.”

“The repeated attacks carried out by the Iranian and Turkish forces with missiles and drones on the Kurdistan region are a violation of the sovereignty of Iraq, and an act that contravenes international covenants and laws that regulate relations between countries,” it added.

Ankara has said that its air forces hit 45 PKK targets in the Kurdistan Region and 44 YPG targets in Rojava on Sunday. The Turkish defense ministry claimed on Monday that it has killed 1,441 YPG and PKK fighters in Syria and Iraq during the "Claw" series of operations, which began in 2019.

Iran’s latest attacks came after IRGC’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani last week threatened ground operations by Iran against opposition parties taking shelter inside Iraqi land.

In the meeting between Barzani and Sudani, both sides also discussed ways to mend ties between Erbil and Baghdad.

PM Sudani “affirmed the federal government's commitment to the Iraqi constitution in addressing outstanding issues with the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq in a way that guarantees the rights of all Iraqi components,” the statement read.

Tension between Erbil and Baghdad has been high since the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court in February deemed the Kurdistan Region’s oil and gas law “unconstitutional”, hence striking the independence of the Region’s energy sector and jeopardizing its industry. The KRG has repeatedly challenged the constitutionality of the court’s ruling.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) earlier this month formed a delegation to partake in negotiations with Baghdad over the outstanding issues between the two sides, stressing the need to implement the agenda the new Iraqi federal government “as soon as possible.”