Baghdad: Iranian Kurdish Groups Transferred Deep into Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein stated on Tuesday that Iraq has begun transferring Iranian Kurdish groups from the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan with Iran to camps further from the border. Reuters reported this news citing Fuad Hussein, noting that the transfer of these groups, which are on Iraqi soil, is part of a security agreement between Baghdad and Tehran. Iraq and Iran previously signed a border security agreement, which Iraqi officials said aims to strengthen the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Islamic Republic claims that the presence of armed Kurdish opposition groups there poses a security threat to Iran. While Reuters reported that the transfer of these groups has begun, Fuad Hussein stated at a press conference on Tuesday: "Based on the agreement between Iraq and Iran, necessary measures have been taken to transfer these groups from border areas, and they have been stationed in camps deep in Kurdistan, Iraq." The Iraqi Foreign Minister mentioned that he would travel to Tehran on Wednesday to personally convey this message in hopes of preventing any escalation of tensions at the border. The Islamic Republic has previously accused the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq of harboring armed groups opposed to the Islamic Republic, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has repeatedly targeted their bases. The Iranian Foreign Ministry previously stated that based on a signed agreement with Iraq, Baghdad has committed to disarm armed opposition groups in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, close their bases, and relocate them by September 19. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has stated that this deadline will not be extended. Critics and Kurdish parties have expressed concerns about this agreement, suggesting that the closeness between the Islamic Republic and the Iraqi Prime Minister has led to such an agreement. Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, the current Prime Minister of Iraq, came to power a year ago with the support of a coalition of parties close to the Islamic Republic. The Islamic Republic's attacks on the positions of Iranian Kurdish parties in Iraq have a history. In September 2018, the Aerospace Forces of the IRGC attacked the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Koy Sanjaq, Iraq, resulting in the deaths of 16 members of the leadership, staff, and Peshmerga of this party, with about 40 others injured. At that time, the IRGC claimed that this attack was a response to an armed assault by this group on a border post in the Hamzeh base in the Marivan region. Two weeks after the protests began in September 2022, the IRGC attacked the positions of these parties in Iraq using artillery and missiles, claiming a connection between the protests in Iran and the Iranian Kurdish parties in Iraq. Soran Khatri, a reporter for Voice of America from Erbil, Iraq, reports that Kurdish parties reject the accusations of the Islamic Republic. Previously, Arash Saleh, a representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, told the Persian section of Voice of America: "The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran has never used Iraqi territory for any military activities against the Islamic Republic." He noted that Kurdish parties in Iraqi territory have "more of a political and non-military presence," stating that the Iraqi government is responsible for protecting the lives of these political activists who are refugees in Iraq and their families. In this regard, Salah Bayezidi, a representative of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan in the U.S., also previously told the Persian section of Voice of America: "In our opinion, these statements and pressures from the Islamic Republic on the regional Kurdish government and the Iraqi government to limit the completely political activities of Iranian Kurdish parties are not new and have existed periodically since 2003." According to him, "For years, missile attacks and the assassination of civil and political Kurdish activists have continued, and now, a year after the 'Women, Life, Freedom' revolution, the Islamic Republic is fearful of the public uprising in Iran again," and given the importance of Kurdistan as the "birthplace and starting point of this revolution," it seeks to pressure Kurdish parties to portray the public uprising of Iranians as dependent on foreign forces and outside this internal revolution. David Romano, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at Missouri State University, told the Persian section of Voice of America that given the halt of independent oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey and the resulting "complete" dependency of the Kurdistan Regional Government on Baghdad, the Iraqi government has "a lot of leverage" over this government and even threatens its autonomy.