ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Britain condemns the recent attack on the Kurdistan Region’s ruling party office in Iraq’s capital Baghdad, the country’s representative announced on Sunday, following a series of local and international condemnations.

On Saturday morning, hundreds of marchers carrying flags of the PMF—an umbrella organization of mostly Iran-aligned Shia militias—stormed the office in the Karrada neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, setting fire to the building along with the Kurdistan Region’s flag while large numbers of security forces looked on.

In a tweet on Sunday, the UK Embassy “strongly” condemned the recent attack on the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) party office in Baghdad, the British embassy in Iraq wrote in a tweet.

The UK’s condemnation comes following a statement from the US State Department on the same day, in which it accused “Iran-backed elements of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF),” to be behind the attack as it condemned the attack.

The attack on the KDP office in Baghdad followed critical remarks made in an interview by KDP official and former Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who said that “in order to thwart the potential closure of the US Embassy in Baghdad,” the Iraqi government should “clean” the militias from the Green Zone, home to multiple foreign diplomatic missions.

“Addressing political difference through dialogue, not violence is a fundamental element of a functioning democracy,” the British embassy wrote in the statement.

The Iraqi government announced on Saturday the arrest of 15 individuals allegedly responsible for the attack but did not specify any of their identities or suspected affiliations.

Britain “welcomes steps taken to hold those responsible to account,” the embassy tweet noted.