Top Security Official: Iran Not to Tolerate Aggression from Iraq's Kurdish Areas

Rasa - Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani underlined that his country does not bear attacks from the terrorists and anti-revolutionary forces stationed in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

News ID: 435913

Date: 21 January 2018 - 23:10

RNA - "That certain anti-revolutionary groups assassinate our soldiers and citizens, using the Kurdish territories, and return to the regions under the KRG's control and then flagrantly claim the responsibility for their acts in interviews with official Kurdish media is not tolerable at all," Shamkhani said in a meeting with Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government Nechirvan Barzani and his accompanying delegation in Tehran on Sunday.

Elsewhere, he referred to the KRG's holding of an independence referendum, and said, "Some individuals imagined that the security of the Kurdish people is separate from the security of other citizens of Iraq and the region, and that the threat posed by the ISIL and terrorism could be administered through negotiations and interaction."

Shamkhani warned that certain regional and trans-regional states are seeking to weaken Iraq and the big countries of West Asia, stressing the need for keeping vigilant to prevent colonial plots, including creation of a bigger Middle-East.

Militant groups have been using the KRG territories to strike at the Islamic Republic in the last several years.

Various Iranian officials have warned the Iraqi Kurdistan Region that it needs to stop cross-border attacks by anti Islamic Republic militant groups from their territories if they do not want to see Iran's tough reaction.

In a recent case, two Iranian border guards were killed and 7 others wounded in clashes with PJAK (the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan) terrorists in the Northwestern province of West Azerbaijan last May.

Clashes with terrorists erupted as the Iranian border guards of Orumiyeh regiment were driving along the border line to change shifts.

The clashes resulted in the martyrdom of the Iranian forces' commander and a warrant officer. Seven more soldiers were also wounded in the incident.

Also, in October 2016, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) forces clashed with a terrorist team sent by PJAK in the Western province of Kurdistan.

The members of the terrorist group who sought to enter Iran were identified by IRGC forces in Golchidar region of Marivan town in Kurdistan province and were forced to flee, leaving a number of their light and semi-heavy weapons behind.

According to the local officials, the terrorist group also launched an RPG attack against the IRGC forces but the RPG round failed to explode.

The PJAK is a terrorist Kurdish group based on the border areas between Iraq's Kurdistan region and Iran's Kurdistan province.

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