Iran’s Foreign Minister in Arbil soon to discuss Iranian border attacks

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iran ’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salihy, is scheduled to visit north Iraq ’s Kurdistan Capital of Arbil soon, to discuss his country’s attacks on Iraqi Kurdistan border areas, al-Hayat Newspaper reported on Monday.   “Salihy had expressed wish, during his reception of an Iraqi Kurdistan delegation, led by the Kurdish Leader, Nichervan Barzani, to visit Iraqi Kurdistan and had contacted the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to discuss the issue of the border attacks,” al-Hayat quoted the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Director-General, in charge of relations between Arbil and Tehran, Abdullah Akerby, as saying.   Noteworthy is that severe fighting had taken place in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil Mountains between the Iranian Army and the forces of the ant-Tehran PJAK Party, with both sides announcing human losses.   Meanwhile, the semi-official Iranian Mehr News Agency had quoted the Deputy Chairman of Iran’s National Security & Foreign Relations Committee of its Shoura Council, Ismail Kowthary, as saying that “Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s Leaders have demanded a certain period to discuss with PJAK to leave the Iraqi border areas, but the period had ended, adding: “we have began chasing the ‘terrorists’, being part of the 2 nd state of our operations,” charging PJAK with “getting support and assistance by the American Forces.”   Noteworthy is that the Iranian shelling of Iraqi Kurdistan’s border areas have continued since more than two months, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, destroying dozens of houses and agricultural fields in a number of border areas, forcing their inhabitants to desert their home towns.   SKH (FT)   324