TEHRAN, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran said Sunday it had blocked all flights to and from Iraq's Kurdistan at the request of Baghdad, one day ahead of Kurdistan's independence referendum, official news agency IRNA reported.
"At the request of the central government of Iraq, all flights from Iran to Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, 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 (SNSC), Keivan Khosravi, as saying.
Since Iran's political activities did not result in conclusion due to the Kurdistan's insistence on referendum, the SNSC decided in its urgent meeting on Sunday morning to seal its borders to the Kurdish flights, Khosravi said.
"The hasty decision of the Kurdistan authorities has both limited their role in Iraq's political scene and has opened the security of Iraq, the region and the Kurds to serious challenges," he added.
