Iraq Starts Relocating Iranian Kurdish Fighters from Iran Border, Says Iraq FM 

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein attends a trilateral meeting with counterparts of Egypt and Jordan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt, August 15, 2023. (Reuters)
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein attends a trilateral meeting with counterparts of Egypt and Jordan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt, August 15, 2023. (Reuters)
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Iraq Starts Relocating Iranian Kurdish Fighters from Iran Border, Says Iraq FM 

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein attends a trilateral meeting with counterparts of Egypt and Jordan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt, August 15, 2023. (Reuters)
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein attends a trilateral meeting with counterparts of Egypt and Jordan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt, August 15, 2023. (Reuters)

Iraq has started relocating Iranian Kurdish groups from Iraq's Kurdish region frontiers with Iran to camps far from the border as part of a security agreement between Baghdad and Tehran, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said on Tuesday.

Iraq and Iran signed a border security agreement in March, a move Iraqi officials said was aimed primarily at tightening the frontier with Iraq's Kurdish region, where Tehran says armed Kurdish dissidents pose a threat to its security.

"Based on the agreement between Iraq and Iran, necessary measures were taken to remove these groups from the border areas and they were housed in camps deep inside Iraqi Kurdistan," Hussein told a press conference on Tuesday.

Hussein said he would visit Tehran on Wednesday to deliver the message in person in the hopes that it would prevent any escalation on the border.

Tehran has long accused Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region of sheltering militant groups involved in attacks against Iran, with Iran's Revolutionary Guards in turn repeatedly targeting their bases.

The Iranian foreign ministry said last month that under the agreement struck with Iraq, Baghdad committed to disarm Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq's Kurdistan region, close their bases, and relocate them to other locations before September 19.

Iranian officials have said that, if the deadline was missed, they could resume attacks against dissident groups inside Iraqi Kurdistan that Tehran had regularly undertaken until the end of last year.

In September 2022, the Revolutionary Guards fired missiles and drones at militant targets at Iraq's Kurdish region, killing 13 people, according to local authorities.

"We will discuss with the Iranian side not to threaten to use violence and not to threaten to attack some areas in the Kurdistan region of Iraq," Hussein said.



Syria and Neighbors Urge Israel to Stop Bombings

Israeli Merkava tanks in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria near the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 08 May 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Merkava tanks in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria near the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 08 May 2025. (EPA)
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Syria and Neighbors Urge Israel to Stop Bombings

Israeli Merkava tanks in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria near the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 08 May 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Merkava tanks in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria near the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 08 May 2025. (EPA)

The foreign ministers of Syria, Türkiye and Jordan, meeting Monday in Ankara, called on Israel to cease attacks on Syria and to withdraw troops from the country.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria since longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December, often targeting military sites and killing dozens of people.

Israeli officials have also described Syria's new authorities as extremists and claimed to defend the country's Druze minority with a recent spate of attacks.

Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a press conference with his Jordanian and Syrian counterparts that "Israel's expansionism poses a significant threat to the security, stability and future of Syria."

"This must come to an end. And we are on the same page about this. Syria needs to be supported to prevent terrorist organizations from settling in this region," Fidan added, noting that Syria shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Türkiye.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told the joint press conference that "our borders are constantly violated by Israeli attacks".

The Israeli strikes are "calculated escalations aimed at destabilizing Syria and dragging the region into a new cycle of conflict", Shaibani said, decrying "systematic violations of international law and explicit provocations".

He called on the international community to put Israel under "increased pressure" to halt the bombings.

Jordan's top diplomat, Ayman Safadi, said attacks on Syrian soil "will not bring security to Israel and will bring nothing to Syria except ruin and destruction".