TEHRAN, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Iran's top military commander said Tuesday that the United States has been provoking "terrorists" based in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to launch assaults on Iranian soil, Press TV reported.
Iran reserves the right to defend itself, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri said with reference to a recent missile strike by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRCG) at a gathering of "terrorists" in Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Over the past two decades, officials from Iraqi Kurdistan and the outlawed Kurdistan Democratic Party had "made a written commitment not to conduct operations in Iran, but they had been breaking the promise over the past year due to U.S. provocations," Baqeri was quoted as saying.
The Iranian top commander said that the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should not allow the establishment of such anti-Iran bases and "criminal" elements in their soil.
On September 8, IRCG launched a missile attack on a center in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region which was used for training anti-Iran Kurdish opposition group, killing 14 opposition members and scores were injured.
