Iranian Army Chief Calls On Iraq To Hand Over Kurdish Militants

Tehran calls on Baghdad and Erbil to hand over Iranian Kurdish militants based in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th September, 2018) Tehran calls on Baghdad and Erbil to hand over Iranian Kurdish militants based in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said on Tuesday.

"The officials of Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraqi government should hand these criminals over to Iran. If they cannot do this, they should at least expel them and these groups from the country," Bagheri said as quoted by the Iranian IRIB broadcaster.

Bagheri made his statement in the wake of an attack by Iran on an Iraqi base of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).

The missile strikes, which Iran's forces carried out on Saturday in the Koya area, east of the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil, reportedly left at least 16 people dead and 38 others wounded.

PDKI's Secretary General Mustafa Mawludi and his predecessor Khalid Azizi were reportedly among those wounded as a result of the attack.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said that Iranian forces launched the strikes against what they called terror groups in Iraq, claiming that the latter had ignored Tehran's calls to cease their attacks on Iranian forces and shut down their bases in the region.