Iraqi Kurds deny issuance of orders to move Iraqi forces to the borders with Iran

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Official Spokesman for Northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region’s Border Command, Major-General Jabbar Yawar, has denied on Thursday the issuance of any military orders to move Iraqi forces to the borders with Iran , saying that “there is no reason for that.”   “There are 1,500 Peshmerga (Kurdish forces), belonging to its 4 th Brigade, in a training center close to Chuar-Qurna village, to carry out normal training, and there are no additional mobilization of troops, because there aren’t any antagonist movements necessitating that,” Yawar told al-Sharq al-Awsat Newspaper, denying “the issuance of any military orders to move troops close to the joint Iraq-Iranian borders.”   The newspaper had quoted the Commander of the 18 th Brigade in Kurdistan’s Balak Area, Salah Dilmany, as saying that the Kurdish Sibay position, belonging to the Kurdish Goran (Change) opposition movement, that “there were 15,000 Peshmerga forces, who were mobilized in Pijdar and Betwein areas, close to the Iranian borders, who have been laid under state of utmost warning.”   The Iranian artillery has been bombarding the Kurdish villages and border areas of northern Iraq ’s Kurdistan Region, in the areas of Choman, Haji-Omran and Soran, under the justification of chasing the anti-Tehran opposition forces in the area.   “The Iraqi Kurdistan’s border areas of Mergasur, Kani-Rash and Taki-Shin of Choman township in Arbil Province , had come under bombardment by the Iranian artillery, forcing the inhabitants of about 20 villages to desert their home areas, according to local sources.   SKH (RT)