Iranian Kurdish groups urge Iraqi parliament to reject call for their expulsion

KOYA, Kurdistan Region — Iran’s Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region have come together to denounce an Iraqi parliamentary motion that calls for their expulsion from Iraq.  

If ratified by the parliament, the motion will likely have long-going implications for armed groups opposed to Iraq’s neighboring governments as it asks foreign factions based in Iraq to either disarm or leave the country. 

The motion has been proposed by the majority Shiite parliamentary block the State of Law headed by the former Prime Minster Nouri Maliki who is believed to have strong ties to Tehran. 

“We ask Kurds from all other parts of Kurdistan for their support and also call on progressive forces in Iraq which do not wish their country to be in the hands of Iran to support us in our join effort to foil this plot,” said Abdulla Muhtadi, the leader of the Kurdish communist party (Komala) in Iran. 

The State of Law proposal says that Baghdad should disarm “any group that launches attacks on neighboring countries from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region” or ask them to leave the country if the groups refused to disarm.

Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’s Party (PKK) and most Iranian Kurdish groups based in the Kurdistan Region have sizeable military forces which often operate along the remote bordering areas with Iran and Turkey.

But the motion will also put the future of Iran’s non-Kurdish opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKI) in deeper uncertainty as the group still maintains a large anti-Iranian force in the country, although it has largely been disarmed over the past years. 

Tehran has frequently asked for the extradition of the MKI members to Iran, but Iraq’s Shiite-led government has so far managed to refuse the request although it has carried out multiple crackdowns on the Ashraf Camp where the group has its base in Diyala province.
 
“We have agreed to form a committee which will follow up on this very important issue and meet with both Kurdish and Iraqi blocks in the Iraqi parliament to dissuade them from endorsing the motion,” said Tahir Mahmoudi, a party spokesperson.