ERBIL, Iraq, June 2 (UPI) -- Kurdish military officials said there is nothing to support claims that Iranian soldiers have entered Iraqi territory, Iranian news outlets claimed Wednesday.
Iranian forces allegedly crossed the border with Iraq during late Monday clashes with militants of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.
Jafar Mustafa, a minister overseeing the Kurdish military in Iraq, told the semiofficial Fars News Agency that the claims were baseless.
"We have not witnessed anything like this," he said from Erbil. "Establishment of military stations on Kurdistan's soil by the Iranian forces is a sheer lie."
PJAK is an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Ankara has expressed recent concern over the escalation of violence attributed to Kurdish guerrillas in recent weeks as the spring fighting season gains momentum.
Iran has battled PJAK rebels and its affiliates in the PKK for several years along its northwestern border with Iraq. Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps killed five PJAK fighters during clashes along the northern border with Iraq in early May.
Washington in 2009 froze the assets of PJAK because of its alleged ties to the PKK.
