FNA- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi underlined that independence of the Iraqi Kurdistan region is not acceptable to Tehran.

"We want Iraq's territorial integrity and rule of the central government," Qassemi told reporters in his weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday.

His remarks came as Iraq's former National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie warned of the dire consequences of arranging a referendum in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and said only Israel and Saudi Arabia agree with this plan.

"All the world states, from the EU and the US to the Middle-East countries, oppose the referendum for independence in the Kurdistan region and only Saudi Arabia and Israel have agreed with it to be used as a pressure leverage against Baghdad," al-Rubaie, now a senior Iraqi parliamentarian, was quoted as saying by al-Mayadeen news channel last Tuesday.

Also, last Monday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani warned that arrangement of a referendum for independence of Iraq's Kurdistan region will harm the Kurds and the entire nation in Iraq.

"Although this issue might be attractive in appearance but actually, it will isolate and pressure the Iraqi Kurds and weaken Kurdistan and finally the entire Iraq," Shamkhani said in a meeting with First Deputy Secretary of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Kosrat Rasul and Chief of Executive Body Politburo of the Union Mala Bakhtiar in Tehran.

Stressing that holding a referendum doesn�t meet the real needs and priorities of the people and runs counter to the Iraqi officials' policy, he warned, "Certain regional and trans-regional states want to weaken Iraq and the large countries in West Asia."