Iran and Iraq reached a deal to disarm and transfer armed terrorist groups in Northern Iraq by mid-September, Tehran said Monday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told reporters that the Iraqi government has "committed to disarming the armed separatist terrorist groups."

As per the agreement, he said, the groups will be evacuated from the military barracks and transferred to camps as planned by the Iraqi government by Sept. 19.

He, however, didn't specify where the armed groups will be transferred.

Kanaani affirmed that relations between Iran and Iraq are "completely friendly and brotherly" based on "good neighborliness."

Iraqi media said the agreement will be implemented in six months and Sept. 19 has been set as a final date for disarming terrorist armed groups and their relocation from the border area.

Iranian authorities have often protested what it calls the presence of "terrorist groups" in northern Iraq, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carrying out a series of drone and missile strikes late last year on their positions.

In January this year, Iran accused the PKK-linked terrorist groups in northern Iraq of carrying out an attack on a military facility in central Isfahan city, which was thwarted.

Nour News, affiliated with Iran's top security body, said at the time that the micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) and explosives used in the attack were smuggled into Iran from northern Iraq and "ordered by a foreign intelligence agency," in a veiled reference to Israel's Mossad intelligence service.

The incident came less than two months after the IRGC carried out missile and drone attacks against militant targets in northern Iraq, killing at least 13 people.

In March, Iran's then-security chief Ali Shamkhani visited Iraq and held talks with Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), with border security featuring prominently in their discussions.

During the visit, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on border security.

Last month, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, warned Iraq over the continued presence and activities of Kurdish armed groups in the region bordering Iran.

He said if the Iraqi authorities do not act, the Iranian military will resume operations against the groups.

Bagheri's remarks came after IRGC ground forces commander Gen. Mohammad Pakpour said Iran is "waiting for the Iraqi government to live up to its commitment and we have given them a chance."

An Iraqi government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the agreement was signed between the two countries and said the central government in Baghdad is "working as quickly as possible" to relocate the groups with the approval of authorities from the Kurdish regional government in Irbil and Sulaimaniyah.

He declined to give the exact location to which the disarmed militants would be moved, but said it would be within the KRG-administered region. He said they "will have a camp to live in and will be without arms."

Different Iranian dissident groups in Iraq are aligned with each of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties - the Kurdistan Democratic Party, with its seat of power in Irbil, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, whose stronghold is in Suleimaniyah - and are at odds with each other as well as with Iran.

"Previously Sulaimaniyah would accuse Irbil of working with these groups, and Irbil would accuse Sulaimaniyah of working with them, but as a central government we agreed to relocate them," the Iraqi official said. "We are trying as hard as possible for this to take place on Sept. 19."

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani came to power last year via a coalition of Iranian-backed parties and is seen as close to Iran, although he has also attempted to build ties with the United States and Türkiye.

A spokesman for Sudani, Hisham al-Rikabi, said in a statement that the prime minister "has spoken on more than one occasion about the government’s refusal for the Iraqi land to be ... a launching pad for targeting neighboring countries."

In addition to disarming the militant groups and removing their bases, he said, the agreement with Iran promises that Iraq will deploy border guards to prevent the "infiltration of militants" across the border and will hand over wanted suspects to Iran "after the issuance of arrest warrants in accordance with the law."

Baghdad allocated some $7 million for the construction of new border posts to prevent illicit movement across the border.

Iran has long accused Iraq's KRG region of harboring terrorist groups involved in attacks against the Islamic Republic, with the Revolutionary Guards repeatedly targeting their bases.

Northern Iraq is known as the location of many PKK terrorist hideouts and bases from where they carry out attacks in Türkiye. The Turkish military regularly conducts cross-border operations in northern Iraq. Türkiye has long been stressing that it will not tolerate terrorist threats posed against its national security and has called on Iraqi officials to take necessary steps to eliminate the terrorist group. Ankara previously noted that if the expected steps were not taken, it would not shy away from targeting terrorist threats.