ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq in a letter called on the UN Secretary General and the Security Council president to ask for Iran to respect its sovereignty and abide to good neighborliness following the January 15 attack on Erbil.

In a five point letter to UN Secretary General and the President of the UN Security Council on January 16 which The New Region has obtained a copy of, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said that the Iraqi government “stresses that this attack constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and the security of the Iraqi people.”


The Iraqi foreign minister’s letter was worded strongly at Iran and its claims towards the presence of Israeli bases at the location targeted. 

“Claims about the presence on Iraqi territory of parties hostile to the Iranian side can in no way justify launching ballistic missiles,” the letter read.

Multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones were directed at Erbil by Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on January 15.

A number of the rockets landed on the private residence of Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee, flattening his house, killing him and his one year old daughter, and wounding other members of his family.


the IRGC claimed responsibility for the attacks, adding that they had targeted an Israeli intelligence spot in Erbil, a claim that has been denied by Iraqi and Kurdish officials repeatedly.

“We inspected on the ground, accompanied by members of the investigation committee, the home of the businessman targeted last night in Erbil, and it became clear that the allegations about targeting a Mossad headquarters were unfounded,” Iraq’s National Security Advisor Qasem al-Araji said in a tweet following his visit to the site of the attack.

This was not the first time he had made such a conclusion, nor was it the first time Iran had targeted the house of a Kurdish businessman inside Erbil.

In March 2022, the IRGC fired a dozen ballistic missiles at Erbil, some of which landed on the house of Sheikh Baaz, another renowned Kurdish businessman. Their reason at the time was still targeting Israeli intelligence.

“I should also like to point out that Iran previously launched a similar attack against Iraq when it bombarded the city of Erbil in March 2022, under the same flimsy pretexts,” Hussein’s letter read.

“Iraq calls on the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council, each in accordance with their mandate, to ask the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to desist from such attacks, abide by the rules of good neighbourliness and respect the sovereignty of Iraq,” Hussein concluded.