Iran is conducting so-called counterterrorism operations in neighboring countries in a sudden attempt to fortify its hold on power, a senior Iraqi official suggested amid a widening dispute over Iranian strikes in three countries.

“Our language with the Iranian [side] was and is to keep this friendly relationship, but it will be impossible for us to accept aggression,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. “Leaders of security organizations inside Iran, they feel like they cannot manage or control their security. Therefore, they are trying to export the problem to outside the country. One of the areas which they are talking about, they are attacking, is Iraqi Kurdistan.”