Iran, Iraq sign border protection deal months after strikes on Kurds

BAGHDAD: Iran´s top security official on Sunday signed a deal with Iraqi authorities for “protection” of their common border, the Iraqi prime minister´s office said, months after Tehran struck Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq´s north.

Iraq´s autonomous Kurdistan region hosts camps and rear-bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish factions, which Iran has accused of serving Western or Israeli interests in the past. In November, Iran launched cross-border missile and drone strikes against several of the groups in northern Iraq, accusing them of stoking the nationwide protests triggered by the death in custody last September of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

Ali Shamkhani, who heads Iran´s Supreme National Security Council, inked the deal with his Iraqi counterpart Qassem al-Araji during a visit to Baghdad, the statement said. It comprises “coordination over the protection of common borders”, and will also see the “strengthening of cooperation in several areas of security”, the statement from the office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani added.

Shamkhani denounced “vicious activities by counter-revolutionary elements” in northern Iraq, a reference to the Kurdish groups operating in the country, according to Iran´s state news agency IRNA.

He said the agreement signed on Sunday “can completely and fundamentally end the vicious actions of these groups,” which the Iranian government labels “terrorist.” After the Iranian strikes, Iraq in November announced it would redeploy federal guards on the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran, rather than leaving the responsibility to Kurdish peshmerga forces -- a move welcomed by Tehran.