KDP’s Hoshyar Zebari suggests ‘diplomatic course’ to Iranian ambassador over missile strike comment

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Hoshyar Zebari, a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), suggested the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq take a course in diplomatic relations following his comments about Iran’s missile attack against Erbil on Sunday. 

In an event in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq, Iraj Masjidi, said that his country’s missile attacks on Erbil early Sunday “was not against the sovereignty of Iraq,” as it had targeted “a Mossad spy base,” the Iranian state media IRNA reported on Monday. 

“I think that he needs to enter into a diplomatic and legal course in international law, international relations, good-neighborly relations, and mutual respect between countries,” Zebari wrote in a Facebook post on Monday in response to the Iranian diplomat’s remark. 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the missile attack, saying it had targeted a “strategic Zionist center,” a claim the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) promptly refuted. 

Zebari later directed another question to the Iranian diplomat: “Are these [attacks the] beginning of new escalations and turning Iraq into a battlefield for settling accounts instead of confronting Israel in Syria, Lebanon, and wounded Gaza?”

KDP President Masoud Barzani on Sunday said that he agreed with Iraqi Shiite politician Muqtada al-Sadr to form a fact-finding committee regarding the “baseless” allegations on the presence of Israeli bases or headquarters in Erbil. 

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Monday similarly called for the formation of an “international committee” to investigate the “accusations”. 

The KRG Department of Foreign Relations on Monday summoned the Iranian Consul General to Erbil to express its grievances over the missile attacks on the Kurdish capital.