Iraq decries 'blatant violation' of sovereignty after Iranian strikes in Kurdish region

By Ahmed Asmar

ANKARA (AA) – Iraq has denounced Monday’s Iranian strikes near Erbil as a “blatant violation” of its sovereignty.

At least one person was killed and 10 others injured in aerial strikes in northern Iraq that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said targeted Kurdish armed groups.

In a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein termed the “continuation of these unilateral actions as dangerous,” according to an Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement issued on Monday evening.

Hussein described the Iranian attacks as “a blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and the security of its citizens.”

He also emphasized the “importance of dialogue as a way to stop this unjustified hostile escalation,” the statement added.

Iranian state media quoted IRGC officials as saying on Monday that “terrorist positions” in northern Iraq were targeted with missiles and drones, referring to the headquarters of the Komala Party and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

The locations targeted were in the Iraqi city of Koye, near Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq.

Iranian authorities accuse anti-Iran Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq of fomenting unrest in the country in the wake of the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Iran has been rocked by widespread protests since September triggered by Amini’s death, who was detained by the country’s morality police.