BAGHDAD, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's Foreign Ministry summoned Tuesday the Iranian charge d'affaires over a ballistic missile attack on Erbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The ministry said in a statement that Abu al-Fadl Azizi, the Iranian charge d'affaires, arrived at the ministry's headquarters on Tuesday morning and received a protest note in which Iraq expressed its strong condemnation of the attack on Erbil.

The note stressed that the attack is a "blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, strongly contradicts the principles of good neighborliness and international law, and threatens the security of the region," according to the statement.

The ministry said in a separate statement that it had recalled, earlier in the day, the Iraqi ambassador to Iran, Naseer Abdul Mohsen, for consultations after the missile attack on Erbil.

Also on Tuesday, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid wrote in a tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the Iranian missile attack on the city of Erbil undermines the security of Iraq and the region.

"Now is a time to reduce tensions in the region, not amplify them," Rashid added.

Late last night, the Kurdistan Region Security Council said in a statement that four people were killed and six others injured when Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic missiles on "several populated civilian areas" in Erbil.

The IRGC said in a statement that it had launched missile attacks on "spy headquarters" in the region, according to Iran's official IRNA news agency. Enditem

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