Tehran is stepping up efforts to go after Iranian Kurds abroad, whom it considers “terrorists”, demanding that Baghdad extradite leaders and members of Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
“A list of nearly 120 terrorists who identify themselves as high-born Kurds has been sent to Iraq for extradition and their trial will be held soon,” Iranian judiciary official Kazem Gharibabadi said on July 13.
Gharibabadi did not disclose the names on the list. But he said preparations were being made to put “leaders and members” of the “terrorist group” on trial.
Kurdish and Iraqi media said the list contained the names of about 120 leaders and members of Iranian-Kurdish groups opposed to Tehran.
Many of these groups were armed, some demanding autonomy within Iran and others fighting for secession from the Islamic Republic. The Kurds make up about 10 percent of Iran’s roughly 88 million people and live primarily in the west of the country along the border with Iraq.
Gharibabadi proposed the move as part of a wider effort to fight terrorism, saying that similar extradition requests would be sent to “relevant foreign countries”.
But the move comes against Iran’s heavy-handed military approach in Iraqi Kurdistan, including deadly airstrikes that have targeted Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups as well as alleged Israeli targets.
Members of Kurdish opposition parties are calling Iran’s pressure, which follows the signing of a security pact between Tehran and Baghdad last year, a misguided cover. undermining Kurdish independence movement.
Many Iranian-Kurdish political parties and factions opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran are based in Iraqi Kurdistan. This includes the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI), the most prominent exile opposition faction; Komala, a leftist group; and the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), the Iranian offshoot of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and designated a terrorist group by Washington.
Tehran has long accused unspecified Kurdish opposition groups, without providing evidence, of coordinating with Israel, its arch-enemy, in orchestrating attacks on Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish opposition groups deny the accusation.
Cross-border strikes
In a security pact agreed between Tehran and the Iraqi central government in March 2023, Baghdad agreed to secure Iraqi Kurdistan’s long eastern border with Iran, as well as to disarm and relocate Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups based in the region.
Many offices of Kurdish parties opposed to Tehran since then was turned off.
Baghdad’s trade with Iran is fraught with controversy. Iran has carried out several strikes in the Kurdistan region, including a rocket attack on PDKI headquarters in Kuisanjaq district in 2018, which killed 15 members of the party leadership as well as Peshmerga forces.
In 2022, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps again targeted the PDKI as well as Komala with missile and drone attacks on the regional capital of Irbil and the city of Sulaymaniyah in the eastern Kurdistan region.
Last year, protests erupted in Iraqi Kurdistan over the construction of a security fence along the region’s border with Iran. And tensions between Iraq’s central government and Tehran rose sharply after Iran launched rocket attacks against Israeli targets in January that killed four people in Irbil.
After Tehran reached out to resolve disputes with Baghdad, the head of the semi-autonomous region, Nechirvan Barzani, visited Iran in May and met with top officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Barzani pledged in writing that Irbil would work to disarm “terrorist groups” and ensure their removal from the Kurdistan region.
While Iran says the alleged anti-Iranian activities of such groups are a key security challenge, representatives of Iranian-Kurdish factions who spoke to RFE/RL Radio Farda denied the claim and suggested Tehran had ulterior motives.
Reza Kaabi, secretary general of Komal, said Iran had focused its pressure on the Kurdish parties by targeting them with “missiles, drones and long-range weapons”.
But in reality, he said, “the Islamic Republic actually targeted the Kurdish People’s Liberation Movement.”
Fear of Kurdish independence
Iraqi Kurdistan held a referendum on independence in 2017, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters with more than 92 percent voting in favor.
Kurdish leaders suggested that the vote, opposed by Baghdad, would not lead to immediate independence. But neighboring states such as Iran, Syria and Turkey – which have large ethnic Kurdish populations – saw the referendum as a worrying sign of possible secession.
Following the referendum, the Iraqi military took control of Irbil and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk from Peshmerga forces, prompting the government in Iraqi Kurdistan to abandon the referendum and begin negotiations with Baghdad.
The regional government later announced that it was “committed to responsible behavior to prevent further violence and conflict”.
Sami Rikani, an independent political activist who lives in the Kurdistan region, says pressure from Iran and Turkey has increased as a result.
“Especially after the referendum on the independence of the Iraqi Kurdistan region in 2017, Iran and Turkey concluded that they should start the process of confronting the Kurdish groups,” Rikani said.
Tehran’s recent demand that Baghdad expel leaders and members of Iranian-Kurdish groups is in line with this strategy and with the security agreement signed between Iraq and Turkey in 2016, Rikani adds.
Turkey has also recently increased its military measures and operations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq to “combat Kurdish groups that oppose the Ankara government,” according to Ankara.
The question now, in light of Iraq’s subsequent security deal with Iran last year, is whether Baghdad will accede to Tehran’s demand.
Neither the Iraqi central government nor the Kurdistan Regional Government immediately responded to the extradition request.
