Iraq asks Tehran to explain a drone attack on the Kurdish premier's residence
No party has claimed the strike on Masrour Barzani's home and private office, and Baghdad has set up a committee to establish where the drones were launched from.
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein telephoned his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Monday to ask Tehran for an official account of a drone attack on the private office and home of Masrour Barzani, premier of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq.
The attack was carried out with Hadid-110 drones and took place on Sunday. Neither ministry gave a figure for casualties or described the damage, and no party has said it was behind it.
Hussein told his counterpart that nothing justified the strike, and that treating a head of a regional government's home as a target sets a precedent that endangers the security and stability of the country as a whole.
Araghchi said the attack had taken him by surprise and that he had no information pointing to Iranian territory as its launch point. He said Iran's relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government gave no reason for such a strike, promised a formal statement of Tehran's position, and said his government opposes anything that widens escalation in the region.
He also urged Kurdish officials to be alert to the possibility that the strike was staged to set them against Iran, recalling Iranian support for the Kurds in the years of Saddam Hussein and during the fight against ISIS, and describing the border the two administrations share as one that Kurdish forces have helped keep quiet.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran, Esmail Baghaei, called the incident suspicious enough to warrant close scrutiny before conclusions are drawn, referred to Iraqi warnings about cells linked to foreign parties staging attacks under a false banner, and said the two governments should not let the episode drive them apart.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has ordered an investigative committee to determine where the drones came from, where they were launched and who sent them. Until it reports, the identity of the party responsible rests on assertion rather than evidence, which is the difficulty facing every capital now issuing a statement about it.