TEHRAN - Iraq has expelled all separatist militant groups residing near the northern borders with Iran, according to Iraq’s Minister of Interior Abdul Amir Al-Shammari. 

During an interview with Al-Arabiya, Al-Shammari announced that the borders between Iran and Iraq’s Kurdistan region are completely under the control of Iraqi forces.

The remarks came after the Arab country’s interior minister announced that Baghdad is committed to its security agreements with Iran. “We have taken necessary actions to remove terrorist groups from the Iraq-Iran border, and our constitution does not allow any side to use Iraqi soil to attack neighboring countries,” Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said just a few days ago.
 
Tehran and Baghdad reached an agreement in March that all armed anti-Iranian separatist terrorist groups in Iraq's Kurdistan region would be disarmed and relocated by September 19.

"An agreement has been struck between Iran and Iraq, in which Iraq has committed to disarm armed separatists and terrorist groups present in its territory, close their bases, and relocate them to other locations before the 19th of September," Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told a weekly briefing just a few days prior to the deadline.

The Nour News Agency, which is associated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, also reported earlier this month that bases belonging to the Komalah, Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) along the common border with Iran and in the other parts of the Iraqi Kurdistan region were in the process of getting dismantled. 

“The terrorist groups are going to be relocated to a base deep inside the soil of the Iraqi Kurdistan region,” the outlet stated, quoting an anonymous source. 
Iranian officials had warned Iraqi governments that Tehran would resort to military action if Baghdad failed to secure the borders by the end of the Iranian calendar month of Shahrivar. 

In September 2022, Iran's Revolutionary Guards targeted terrorist groups in Iraqi Kurdistan, firing missiles and drones at their bases. According to local authorities, 13 terrorists died during the attacks.  

MHA/PA