SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran’s Islamic revolutionary guard corps (IRGC) on Monday called on the Kurdistan Region’s people living on the border areas with Iran to stay away from bases used by the Kurdish opposition parties.
Commander of the IRGC ground force Mohammad Pakpour said the Iranian Kurdish opposition parties had used areas on the Kurdistan Region’s border to undermine Iran’s security and tranquility.
“Iraq and the officials of the northern region of this country have been given the necessary warnings,” Pakpour said during a visit to areas on Iran’s border with the Kurdistan Region, according to Sepah News.
He further said the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Region should not allow “terrorists to establish headquarters in this land to threaten and create insecurity in Iran.”
“We ask the residents of these areas to stay away from the terrorist bases so that they are not harmed,” he added.
Iran has in the past shelled armed Kurdish opposition groups based in the Region.
In August, secretary of Iran’s top national security body Ali Shamkhani urged Iraq to expel the Kurdish opposition parties from the Kurdistan Region.
“We call on the Iraqi government to take more serious action to expel these groups from Iraqi Kurdistan so that Iran does not have to take preventative measures against…these armed terrorists,” said Shamkhani, according to the state news agency IRNA.
There are frequent clashes along Iran’s border with the Kurdistan Region between Iranian security forces and Kurdish armed groups such as the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
