Iran warns of more strikes against opposition groups in Kurdistan Region
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iran warned again on Sunday that cross-border military attacks against Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region will continue and may even expand.
Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, told reporters that Tehran would continue the operations it began two weeks ago.
"It is the Iranian nation's legal and logical right to enjoy safe and calm borders," Baqeri said, according to Iran's Tasnim News Agency.
He said that Tehran had told the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that the groups must be expelled from the mountainous region or else Iran would take matters into its own hands and use military force.
"Therefore, if the presence of them (groups) and their evil acts continue, we will annihilate them by repeating and expanding our operations until they bail out completely and leave," Baqeri added.
During Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's recent visit to Iran last week, he met with the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkani. Shamkani told the Iraqi leader that these groups need to be disarmed and expelled from the Kurdistan Region.
Baqeri claimed that Iran has no qualms with political activities in the Kurdistan Region, only with groups resorting to armed struggle to achieve their political goals.
"But we could not tolerate armed activities and will definitely take action against them," he said.
Earlier this month, Iran bombarded parts of the Erbil province countryside with artillery after threatening to take military action against these groups. It also used small 'suicide' drones in those cross-border strikes.
The KRG has consistently stressed that it opposes any armed group using any part of its territory as a base to attack any of its neighbors.