Iran Kurds, Police Clash At Celebration Of Iraqi Election

Dow Jones Newswires:

Some 300 Iranian Kurds celebrating the election of their leader to office in Iraq clashed with police in northwestern Iran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Wednesday.

The group was celebrating Tuesday the election of Massoud Barzani as the first president of Iraq's northern Kurdistan region, before the jubilation turned violent. They damaged cars and buildings in the Kurdish city of Mahabad, 680 kilometers northwest of Tehran. It wasn't immediately clear whether there were casualties or arrests. READ MORE

Mahabad, with a population of 190,000, is in west Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran.

The crowd set tires on fire and threw stones and bricks at police after they tried to disperse them.

They also damaged campaign material for candidates in Iran's presidential elections, the report said. Eight candidates are running in Friday's elections.

Telephone calls to the governor's office were not immediately returned on Wednesday.

Massoud Barzani was sworn in on Tuesday as the first president of Iraq's northern Kurdistan region. Barzani is a Sunni Muslim Kurd and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Mustafa Barzani, Massoud's father, was commander in chief of the republic of Kurdistan in Iran headed by Qazi Muhammad in Mahabad in 1945. Iran's armed forces recaptured Mahabad and dismantled the self-proclaimed republic in 1946.