Iranian foreign ministry said Monday that it closed down its border gates to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in response to a referendum on independence.
“At the request of the Iraqi government, we have closed our land and air borders” with Iraqi Kurdistan, said foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi at a press conference, adding that the referendum was “illegal and illegitimate”.
Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported that on Sunday that the Supreme National Security Council closed Iranian airspace to the Iraqi Kurdish area at the request of the central government in Baghdad.
Ghasemi told reporters that the vote could “lead to developments and happenings that could affect all people of the region and especially Kurdish people.”
Ghasemi reiterated that Iran supports the “territorial integrity and democratic process” in Iraq.
Since Sunday, Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has been having a military exercise in its northwestern Kurdish region bordering Iraq in a sign of Tehran’s concerns over the vote.
