ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) has sparked a war of words with other Kurdish-Iranian parties by calling their leaders “lazy”, and comparing them to “mares and horses.”
Asked in a television interview about the many Kurdish parties that have renounced armed struggle against the Iranian government for greater Kurdish rights, PJAK leader Haji Ahmadi likened their leaders to idle “mares and horses.”
“The members of the Iranian Kurdish parties have created a village for themselves in Iraqi Kurdistan, and in that lazy-house they sit without any activity,” Haji Ahmadi said on Newroz TV.
While most Kurdish groups have renounced armed struggle against Iran’s Islamic Republic and seek a political settlement for their rights, PJAK has continued to pursue militant activities. Its rebels have engaged in heavy clashes with Iranian border patrols in the past few years.
Haji Ahmadi’s statement has angered other Kurdish parties, mainly the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).
In the Newroz interview, Haji Ahmadi mocked other Iranian Kurdish groups who call themselves Rasan, the Kurdish word for genuine. “The word Rasan is used for mares and horses,” Haji Ahmadi said.
KDPI leaders described the interview as “insulting”, and accused the group of waging a proxy war against them on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is regarded as PJAK’s mother party.
“This kind of PKK-PJAK propaganda attack is nothing new,” said Raza Kaabi, deputy head of the Komala Party. “They have done it in the past as well. This manner of speaking is their culture,” he retorted.
Kaabi said that the PKK is PJAK’s puppeteer. He added that one of the aims of a planned National Conference in Erbil, gathering all Kurdish groups, is to tell all parties “not to interfere in the affairs of other parts of Kurdistan and not to establish proxy groups.”
The militant PKK has many arms -- PJAK in Iran, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and the Democratic Solution Party of Kurdistan (PCDK) in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The aim of the conference is to persuade all Kurdish parties to work for a common Kurdish cause, instead of each party pursuing its own interests.
Mustafa Mawludi, deputy secretary general of the KDPI, said he hopes that the Erbil meeting would address this issue. “Any group that interferers in the affairs of other parts of Kurdistan for its own political goals, is only causing trouble,” he told Rudaw.
The underlying cause of this recent rift between PJAK and the KDPI is over a clash earlier this month, in which seven people were killed near the border village of Maraghan.
PJAK had claimed it had killed seven Iranian soldiers in a clash, but the KDPI provided another version of events. It said that seven drug smugglers were killed in a fight with another gang.
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