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.



Trump, Netanyahu Meet Again as Gaps Said to Narrow in Gaza Ceasefire Talks

07 July 2025, US, Washington: US President Donald Trump receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak privately in the Vermeil Room before a dinner at the White House. (Daniel Torok/White House/dpa)
07 July 2025, US, Washington: US President Donald Trump receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak privately in the Vermeil Room before a dinner at the White House. (Daniel Torok/White House/dpa)
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Trump, Netanyahu Meet Again as Gaps Said to Narrow in Gaza Ceasefire Talks

07 July 2025, US, Washington: US President Donald Trump receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak privately in the Vermeil Room before a dinner at the White House. (Daniel Torok/White House/dpa)
07 July 2025, US, Washington: US President Donald Trump receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak privately in the Vermeil Room before a dinner at the White House. (Daniel Torok/White House/dpa)

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday met for a second time in two days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Gaza as Trump's Middle East envoy said Israel and Hamas were closing their differences on a ceasefire deal.

Netanyahu arrived at the White House shortly before 5 p.m. EDT for a meeting that was not expected to be open to the press. The two men met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday during the Israeli leader's third US visit since the president began his second term on January 20.

Netanyahu met with Vice President JD Vance and then visited the US Capitol on Tuesday. He told reporters after a meeting with the Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson that while he did not think Israel's campaign in the Palestinian enclave was done, negotiators are "certainly working" on a ceasefire.

"We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas' military and government capabilities," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu's return to the White House to see Trump on Tuesday pushed back his meeting with US Senate leaders to Wednesday.

Shortly after Netanyahu spoke, Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said the issues keeping Israel and Hamas from agreeing had dropped to one from four and he hoped to reach a temporary ceasefire agreement this week.

"We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we'll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released," Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump's Cabinet.

The Gaza war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.

Israel's retaliatory war in Gaza has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave's health ministry. Most of Gaza's population has been displaced by the war and nearly half a million people are facing famine within months, according to United Nations estimates.

Trump had strongly supported Netanyahu, even wading into domestic Israeli politics by criticizing prosecutors over a corruption trial against the Israeli leader on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges that Netanyahu denies.

In his remarks to reporters at the US Congress, Netanyahu praised Trump, saying there has never been closer coordination between the US and Israel in his country's history.