Iranian artillery on Thursday resumed attacking civilian sites north of the city of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The renewed Iranian shelling hit the Sidekan sub-district of the Soran region.
“The attack targeted the Saqar and Barzini regions in Sidekan,” said Ihsan Shalabi, Sidekan’s mayor.
“It did not result in casualties or injuries among civilians,” noted Shalabi.
Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahaf had announced on Wednesday that the ministry will summon the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad to hand him a strongly worded protest note due to the continuous bombing of areas in the Kurdistan region.
A day after al-Sahaf’s announcement, the ministry released a statement that affirmed it summoned Ambassador Mohammad Kadhim Al Sadiq and handed him a “strongly worded note of protest.”
“The strongly worded message included the Iraqi government’s condemnation, which represented the continuation of Iranian forces’ encroachment on Iraq’s sovereignty,” the statement said, adding that Iranian attacks targeting Iraqi civilians cannot be tolerated.
In the statement, the ministry demanded that Iran respects Iraqi sovereignty and commitments made to international covenants.
It also affirmed that Iranian attacks threaten to destabilize the region.
The Kurdistan Region Parliament also expressed its condemnation of the attacks.
“Iranian shelling is repeatedly targeting the governorates of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah under the pretext of the presence of Iranian-Kurdish opposition parties,” explained the Parliament.
“On behalf of the Kurdistan Parliament, we strongly condemn the attacks and bombardment, and they cannot continue under any pretext or justification,” said Kurdistan Parliament Deputy Speaker Hemin Hawrami.
Hawrami voiced Iraqi Kurdistan’s desire for serious relations with neighboring countries. But he stressed that those relations must abide by international covenants, principles of good neighborliness, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for territorial sovereignty.
The deputy speaker stressed the importance of not using Iraqi Kurdistan territory as a launching pad for attacks against neighboring countries. Hawrami also called on the federal government and the international community to take serious positions on Iran’s ongoing violation.
