Iran writes to UN, stresses right to self-defense against terror attacks from Iraq

Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations defends Tehran’s resort to military force against separatist terror groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan Region, saying the country reserves the inherent right to self-defense against the security threats posed by the terrorists to the Iranian soil and nation.

In a letter to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Tehran’s mission in New York rejected accusations of Iranian violations of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity at a UN Security Council meeting held on October 4, 2022, under the agenda item “the Situation concerning Iraq.”

Recently, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) launched a series of multi-pronged military attacks on bases of anti-Iran terrorists in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, which were found to have played a role in fueling violent riots across Iran.

The letter said the so-called Democratic Kurdestan Party, Reform Komala, Communist Komala, Pejak, and Pak, holed up in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, have continued to use Iraqi territory to conduct terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and vital infrastructure

Since 2016, it said, they have conducted 49 terrorist attacks inside and near Iran’s borders all carried out from terrorist bases within the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

To further their “nefarious terrorist goals,” the terrorist groups tried to exploit recent peaceful protests in Iran and caused “unrest and damage to private and public properties,” it said.

The mission was referring to the deadly riots that erupted in Iran amid protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, who fainted at a police station and was pronounced dead days later at a Tehran hospital on September 16.

Iran’s IRGC strikes positions of terrorist groups in northern Iraq

In fresh attacks, the IRGC targets the positions of terrorist groups operating near the country’s western borders in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

What started as peaceful protests took a violent turn after unruly protesters fatally attacked policemen and indulged in vandalism against public property in several cities. The terrorists in northern Iraq are reported to have been largely involved in the deadly riots in Iran by sneaking armed elements and cashes of weapons to support groups of thugs behind violence in Iranian cities.

Iran, the letter added, has urged the government of Iraq and officials of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to take the necessary measures, in accordance with Iraq’s obligations under international law, the principles of friendly relations and good neighborliness as well as the Iraqi constitution.

However, despite repeated warnings and objections issued by Iran, neither the Iraqi government nor local Kurdish official took any concrete measures to fulfill their international obligations to refrain from sheltering such terrorist groups, whose activities pose a serious threat to Iran.

“Iran had no choice but to exercise its inherent right to self-defense under international law in order to protect its people, national security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” the letter said.

The mission also reiterated the Islamic Republic’s “unwavering commitment” to Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and called on the government of Iraq to “exercise and extend its effective control” over its entire territory and avoid harboring such terrorist and armed groups.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated its genuine commitment to Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity by positively responding to and supporting the Iraqi government's request to assist in the fight against the Daesh terror group, it said.

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