Iraqi PM to visit Tehran

A senior Iraqi official announced on Monday that his country's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is due to visit Tehran in the near future. Maliki is scheduled to visit Iran, Turkey, the UAE and Qatar to consolidate cooperation between Iraq and these countries and remove certain ambiguities in a number of bilateral issues, an informed political official said. Issues related to the shared borders between the two countries, reinvigoration of economic cooperation and the recent operations by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) against the Iraq-based PJAK terrorist group are reportedly high on the agenda of talks between Maliki and Iranian officials. In July, the IRGC arrested several teams of PJAK, who intended to infiltrate Iran to stage terrorist operations in the country. Iran also deployed about 5,000 military forces in the Northwestern parts of the country along its joint border with the Iraqi Kurdistan region. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has resumed military operations against the Iraq-based PJAK terrorist group after its one-month deadline to the terrorist group ended on Wednesday. "The IRGC has started a new round of operations to completely uproot the PJAK grouplet," said Hamid Ahmadi, a senior IRGC Ground Force Commander for Operations. He added that the operations against PJAK had been suspended during the holy month of Ramadan upon a demand by the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government. During the operations, the IRGC forces killed, injured and arrested tens of terrorists and destroyed their headquarters in the bordering areas of Alvatan near Sardasht city in Northwestern Iran. PJAK, a militant Kurdish nationalist group with bases in the mountainous regions of Northern Iraq, has been carrying out numerous attacks in Western Iran, Southern Turkey and the Northeastern parts of Syria where the Kurdish populations live. The separatist group has been fighting to establish an autonomous state, or possibly a new world country, in the area after separating Kurdish regions from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Iranian intelligence and security officials have repeatedly complained that Washington provides military support and logistical aids for such anti-Iran terrorist groups.