Shafaq News- Erbil

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) sealed its border with Iran and deployed forces along it when the regional war broke out, while warning Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based on its territory that they would not be allowed to attack Iran, President Nechirvan Barzani said on Monday.

"Iran is our neighbor, the war was not our war, and the Kurdistan Region will not be a launchpad for threats against Iran," Barzani told a panel at the Middle East Research Institute's MERI Forum 2026 in Erbil.

No armed group can be allowed to threaten neighboring countries from the KRI, he said, adding that this is rejected internationally and prohibited under Iraqi law and the constitution.

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Barzani stressed that KRI’s policy from the start of the US-Iran war was to keep Kurdistan out of the war entirely. To that end, he said, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) stayed in daily contact with Baghdad and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

“Despite political differences, Kurdish parties and Baghdad agree on strategic matters and have worked together to protect the KRI.”

Iranian Kurdish opposition groups have had camps in the KRI for decades. Earlier on Monday, two unidentified drones struck the Azadi camp of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in Koya district, east of Erbil, a local source told Shafaq News.

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