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World / Middle East

Iran blocks all Iraqi Kurdistan flights ahead of referendum: official

Published: 24 Sep 2017 - 03:30 pm | Last Updated: 30 Nov 2021 - 02:54 am
Employees from the Independent High Electoral Referendum Commission hang banners outside a voting station ahead of tomorrow's planned referendum for the Kurdistan region, in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on Septembe

Employees from the Independent High Electoral Referendum Commission hang banners outside a voting station ahead of tomorrow's planned referendum for the Kurdistan region, in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on Septembe

AFP

Tehran: Iran said Sunday it had blocked all flights to and from Iraq's Kurdistan at the request of Baghdad, a day before the autonomous region holds an independence referendum that Tehran opposes.

"At the request of the central government of Iraq, all flights from Iran to Sulaymaniyah and Arbil, as well as all flights through our airspace originating from the Kurdistan region, have been stopped," official news agency IRNA quoted the spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council, Keivan Khosravi, as saying.