Iraq should not be turned into an arena for settling scores by outside forces, the Arab republic's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said on Sunday night during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"The prime minister stressed that Iraq should not be allowed to become an arena for settling foreign scores, adding that the country continues to strengthen its active role at the international and regional levels," his press office said in a statement.
The prime minister also thanked the United States for its support, assuring that the government "is taking all measures to strengthen the sovereignty of the Iraqi state and protect it from any encroachment." According to the communiqué, Blinken said that "the United States stands in solidarity with Iraq and supports anything that will preserve its security and sovereignty."
On Sunday night, the northern Iraqi city of Erbil came under fire. Several rockets reportedly exploded in the vicinity of the US Consulate General under construction. The Kurdistan 24 TV channel's office was damaged. There were no casualties, one local resident was lightly wounded.
A number of Arab mass media reported that the rockets could have struck the locations of the Israeli intelligence service "Mossad", but the Iraqi Kurdistan Region authorities denied that there were such facilities on the territory of Erbil. Later there were reports that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, Iran's elite armed forces) claimed responsibility for the attack, allegedly in response to "recent Israeli crimes." The night before, the Iraqi foreign ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and handed him a note of protest over the incident.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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Based on materials from TASS