SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran’s revolutionary guards will continue to attack bases belonging to the Kurdish opposition parties based in the Kurdistan Region, a senior military commander said on Sunday.
Iranian armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri warned Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that they must deal with the opposition groups based on the border areas between the Region and Iran.
“Our operation against opposition groups will continue and we will not tolerate any mischief within these borders,” Bagheri said, according to Radio Farda.
He also called for the closure of U.S. bases in the Kurdistan Region, saying they should not be used against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On Sept. 12, secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council Ali Shamkhani asked Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi who paid a visit to Tehran to expel the Kurdish opposition parties from the country.
Shamkhani considered “increasing movements of terrorist groups in the Iraqi Kurdistan region as a matter of threat to the security of the two countries’ borders,” state news agency IRNA cited him as saying.
He urged “the immediate disarmament and expulsion of those groups from Iraq,” IRNA reported.
On Sept. 9, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bombarded several villages on the Kurdistan Region’s border areas with Iran.
There were no casualties in the bombardments that continued for three days.
The bombardments came after commander of the IRGC ground force Mohammad Pakpour called on the Region’s people to stay away from bases used by the opposition parties on the border areas.
Iran accuses the Kurdish armed groups based on the Kurdistan Region’s border areas of disrupting its security.
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).
