Iraq summons Iranian ambassador over border shelling

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has summoned the Iranian ambassador to demand an immediate halt to the shelling of its border areas. “On Monday (May 4) afternoon, Ambassador Taha Shokr Mahmoud al-Abbasi, the head of the neighboring countries’ affairs department, summoned Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi-Qomi to convey Iraq’s strong protest against the Iranian armed forces’ serious violations in Iraqi villages and territory,” according to a ministry statement received by IraqiNews.com news agency. Abbasi handed Qomi an official protest note over the issue, the statement noted. A spokesperson for the Peshmerga forces in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Jabbar Yawer, said that Iranian artillery and warplanes had shelled border mountainous areas in Banjawin district, east of Sulaimaniya city. The shelling came a few days after PJAK fighters had killed 15 Iranians during attacks on Iranian targets in cross-border areas, according to PJAK sources. The PJAK, or the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), is a militant Kurdish nationalist group based in northern Iraq that has been carrying out attacks in the Kurdistan Province of Iran and other Kurdish-inhabited areas. PJAK is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation (Koma Civakên Kurdistan or KCK), which is an alliance of outlawed Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council. The Kurdistan Workers Party (KK) is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the United States, NATO and the EU, and is also a member of KCK. Led by Haji Ahmadi, the PJAK’s objective is to establish a semi-autonomous regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, Turkey and Syria similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG) in Iraq. The PJAK, an Iranian Kurdish party that broke away from the PKK, or Partiya Karekeren Kurdistan in Kurdish, in 2004 after the imprisonment of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, started its armed struggle against the regime in Iran with the aim of building a federacy for Iran’s Kurdistan. The PJAK has about 3,000 armed militiamen. SS (S) 1