TEHRAN, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Iran has requested Iraq to extradite 38 main members of Kurdish "separatist terrorist groups" based in northern Iraq, the High Council of Human Rights of Iran's Judiciary said on Wednesday.
The demand was put forward by Iran's visiting Deputy Judiciary Chief for International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi in a meeting with the President of the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq Faiq Zidan in Baghdad, the report said.
Gharibabadi asked the Iraqi official to, based on the bilateral judicial cooperation agreements and the joint security agreement signed in March, repatriate them to Iran soon for them to be placed on trial.
For his part, Zidan reiterated Iraq's commitment to fight "terrorist" groups and to cooperate with the Iranian side via judicial apparatus to this end.
On Tuesday, Iran and Iraq held their first meeting of the joint judicial committee on fighting terrorism, co-chaired by Gharibabadi and the head of Iraq's Judicial Supervision Commission Laith Jabr Hamza, where the two officials agreed to facilitate judicial cooperation and extradition of the perpetrators of any terrorist act, including suspects and convicts.
Under the security agreement signed in March, the Iraqi government had pledged to disarm anti-Iran "separatist terrorist groups" operating in Iraq's Kurdistan Region and relocate them to an alternate camp by a deadline that expired on Tuesday. ■
