Baghdad, UN Mission, Sadr Decry Iran’s Missile Attack On Erbil

Nour News, which is close to the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani, on Sunday broke the news of the “temporary suspension” of the fifth round of negotiations.

"Iran has unilaterally suspended talks with Saudi Arabia," the report said, without providing a reason. The announcement was unexpected as Iran had been publicly more enthusiastic about the talks than Saudi Arabia.

The report said no specific date had been scheduled for a new round of talks. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein announced on the sidelines of the Antalya Conference on Saturday that the fifth round of talks would be held in Baghdad on Wednesday

The news comes a day after Saudi Arabia carried out mass executions of 81 men that activists said included 41 Shiite Muslims.

Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, which are locked in proxy conflicts around the region, launched direct talks hosted by Iraq last year at a time when global powers were trying to salvage the 2015 nuclear pact with Tehran, and as UN-led efforts to end a war in Yemen stalled.

Riyadh cut ties with Iran in 2016 when mobs attacked its embassy in Tehran after Riyadh executed 47 dissidents including the leading Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. An Iranian lawmaker had said in January that Tehran and Riyadh were getting ready to reopen their embassies.

The Sunday statement coming hours after the attack said Israeli "strategic centers" were targeted “last night with precision-guided missiles” of the IRGC, while the apparent target was the US consulate in the city.

It stressed that the Iranian armed forces are a “red line” and “no one will be allowed to threaten or attack them”.

"Any repetition of attacks by Israel will be met with a harsh, decisive and destructive response," the statement added, noting the IRGC had vowed it would not “leave Israel’s crimes and evils unanswered”.

On Monday, the IRGC had vowed to avenge the death of two of its officers in an Israeli air strike near the Syrian capital Damascus.

The IRGC statement said Col. Ehsan Karbalaipur and Morteza Saeednejad “were martyred” on the outskirts of Damascus by an Israeli missile attack. “Without a doubt the Zionist regime will pay for this crime.”

Iran has entrenched itself in Syria after a decade of military involvement is support of Bashar al-Assad’s government and Israel often strikes Iranian military targets it deems a threat.

A dozen ballistic missiles struck Erbil at 1 am on Sunday, targeting the US consulate's new building and the neighboring residential area but caused only material damage and one civilian was injured, the Kurdish interior ministry said.

In a major escalation of tensions in the Middle East, a dozen ballistic missiles struck Erbil at 1 am on Sunday, targeting the US consulate's new building and the neighboring residential area but caused only material damage and one civilian was injured, the Kurdish interior ministry said on Sunday.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards released on Sunday a statement taking responsibility for missile attacks against Israeli "strategic centers" in Iraq's northern Kurdish regional capital of Erbil

Democratic representative Elaine Luria said in a tweet hours after the attack that she is continuing to monitor the situation, stating that “if reports are accurate, the Biden Administration must withdraw its negotiations with Iran”.

“We cannot re-enter a failed JCPOA to further empower Iran and threaten global security”, the Navy veteran added.

Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain said, “This aggression shows we should absolutely end all Iran Nuclear Deal negotiations now. We must also never buy Iranian oil”.

Congressman Ritchie Torres twitted, “Iran attacks a US consulate while seeking US sanctions relief? No Bueno”.

Senior Adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Richard Goldberg urged Biden to convene an emergency meeting of the National Security Council “to assess available intelligence & consider a full range of military, cyber, economic & political responses, noting, “The Russian-brokered Iran Deal on the table in Vienna includes lifting terrorism sanctions on Iran’s central bank, oil company, tanker company, petrochemical company & many more alongside removing the IRGC from the FTO list. Tonight should be a death knell for this horrible deal”.

“No country can be allowed to launch missile attacks against US interests without facing an immediate and meaningful response. There are a range of options. Deterrence must be restored. This isn’t partisan. If the President acts, he should get bipartisan support”, he added.

Gabriel Noronha, a former official at Iran desk in the State Department said, “Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree: Biden must not continue talks with Iran while they attack our bases in Iraq”.

Another official of the former US administration Robert Greenway, who was part of the negotiating team for the Abraham Accords, said, “Is it too much to ask Iran cease threatening US citizens to continue negotiations or enjoy any benefits of a deal? Or that we consider a regime so committed to killing more Americans unworthy of our trust negating the viability of any deal?”

Andrew Lewis Peek, who was a strategic advisor to the NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a tweet, “Tonight’s missile attack in Iraq is 100% representative of a breakdown of deterrence against Iran not just under Biden, but under years of US policy in Iraq”.

Former research fellow at the Washington Institute Nadav Pollak has reacted to a video shared by advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiating team Mohammad Marandi, who gloated, “This is just the beginning”.

Pollak said, “The fact that Iran is doing this while talks are still being held in Vienna says something about how they perceive the EU and US resolve to contain them”.

A State Department spokesperson told Axios that the incident "is being investigated by the government of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government."

In a major escalation of tensions in the Middle East, a dozen ballistic missiles struck Erbil at 1 am on Sunday, targeting the US consulate's new building and the neighboring residential area but caused only material damage and one civilian was injured, the Kurdish interior ministry said on Sunday.

An Iranian state-TV correspondent based in Iraq said that the missiles were aimed at "secret Israeli bases," a claim repeated by government-controlled media in Iran.

Fars News in Iran affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) reported the attack Sunday morning only quoting a pro-Iran news agency in Iraq saying that ballistic missiles hit “military targets” in Erbil.

Later on Sunday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard took responsibility for launching the attack.

Earlier in the week Iran vowed revenge for the death of two IRGC officers near Damascus Syria in what appeared to have been an Israeli air or missile attack.

There was no official claim of responsibility or further details available. A US State Department spokesperson called it an "outrageous attack" but said no Americans were hurt and there was no damage to US government facilities in Erbil.

The official government news agency IRNA also quoted Iraqi sources saying the attack targeted “advanced training centers of Israeli spying agencies.”

The attack also coincides with a “pause” in nuclear talks in Vienna. After 11 months of talks between Iran and world powers to revive the Obama-era nuclear agreement called JCPOA came to a halt after Russia made demanded that it be exempt from Ukraine sanctions in its dealings with Iran.

The attack on Erbil is expected to have a further negative impact on any chances of a nuclear agreement.

An Iranian website reflecting the views of the country's national security council announced Sunday that scheduled talks with Saudi Arabia have been "suspended".

US forces stationed at Erbil's international airport complex have in the past come under fire from rocket and drone attacks that US officials blame on Iran-aligned militia groups, but no such attacks have occurred for several months.

The last time ballistic missiles were directed at US forces was in January 2020 - an Iranian retaliation for the US killing earlier that month of its military commander Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport.

No US personnel were killed in the 2020 attack, but many suffered head injuries.

Iraq and neighboring Syria are regularly the scene of violence between the United States and Iran. Iran-backed Shi'ite Islamist militias have attacked U.S. forces in both countries and Washington has on occasion retaliated with air strikes.

Kurdish officials did not immediately say where the missiles struck. A spokesperson for the regional authorities said there were no flight interruptions at Erbil airport.

Residents of Erbil posted videos online showing several large explosions, and some said the blasts shook their homes.

Iraq has been rocked by chronic instability since the defeat of the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State in 2017 by a loose coalition of Iraqi, U.S.-led and Iran-backed forces.

Since then, Iran-aligned militias have regularly attacked US military and diplomatic sites in Iraq, US and many Iraqi officials say. Iran denies involvement in those attacks.

With reporting by Reuters

Iranian Road Minister Rostam Ghasemi and Azerbaijan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev signed the agreement during a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in attendance in capital Baku on Friday.

The 55-kilometer highway will bypass the territory of Armenia, which is located between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijani region of Kalbajar-Lachin, now named Eastern Zangezur.

The region was in Nagorno-Karabakh that came under the control of Azerbaijan after Yerevan and Baku fought a war over the disputed region in 2020.

This highway will also connect to the International North–South Transport Corridor that is a multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight across India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia.

In January, Iran and Azerbaijan signed another dealto construct a bridge on Astarachay River running along the joint border as part of their plans to increase road transit between the two countries.

In a message to President Ebrahim Raisi on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Iran Saturday, Aliyev said, “Over the years, numerous reciprocal trips, signed documents and agreements, as well as joint projects have played an important role in the development of our dynamic cooperation in political, economic, transport, energy, cultural and other fields”.