KurdistanObserver.com Iraqi Minister Demands End To Shelling By Iran The New York Times September 4, 2007 TEHRAN, Iran - Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, delivered a strongly worded demand to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other Iranian officials on Monday to halt the shelling of a mountainous border region in Iraq's north, where Zebari said the bombardment has driven as many as 3,000 Kurdish villagers from their homes and set orchards and fields ablaze. Zebari said in an interview that the Iranians, who have refused to acknowledge publicly that the shelling was taking place, did not dispute his account. He said that the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, described the shelling as Iran's response to guerrilla attacks against it by a group that is opposed to the Iranian government and is believed to have bases on the Iraqi side of the border. Members of that group, Pezak, have claimed responsibility for attacks inside Iran, and they are believed to have shot down at least one Iranian helicopter in recent months. Zebari said that the shelling of the villages was indiscriminate and achieving little against Pezak positions, and he made clear that Iraqi patience was wearing thin with the bombardment, which has taken place intermittently for about two weeks. The Iraqi government had previously sent a letter of protest to Iran about the shelling. But the Iraqi ambassador to Iran, Mohammad Majid al-Sheikh, said Monday that Iran had ignored that letter. Members of Pezak are said to be Iranian Kurds essentially seeking autonomy for Kurds in Iran. How long their cross-border incursions have been taking place is not known.       Copyright © 2002, Kurdistan Observer