Security threats bring Iran’s Kurdish groups closer together
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— Iran’s Kurdish opposition groups have agreed to form a joint commission working on intelligence sharing to face what they describe as security threats to their members and forces, party officials told Rudaw Wednesday.
The commission consisting of nearly all armed Kurdish factions opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran will work on gathering and sharing intelligence that could help the parties to provide better protection for their bases particularly inside the Kurdistan Region where the bulk of their staff is stationed.
Officials said the move is in response to last month’s deadly bombings of the politburo office of Iran’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK or HDK) in which 7 people were killed.
The HDK has officially accused Iran of masterminding the twin bombings in Koye, Kurdistan Region, as investigations are still ongoing.
“We intend to protect our members and have agreed that the Islamic Republic poses a real threat to all our security with their terror actions and also how to repel such actions,” said Tahir Mahmoudi, an HDK spokesperson.
Mahmoudi said the parties had presented their suggestions on how to share information and confront the security threats but no decision had so far been made regarding the structure of the commission.
Once formidable opposition forces in Iran in the late 1970s and ‘80s, the two main Kurdish factions, the HDK and the Kurdistan Communist Party (Komala) have increasingly seen their roles marginalized in the aftermath of Iraq-Iran war which ended in 1988.
The assassination of HDK’s charismatic leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna, Austria in 1989 and the subsequent murder of his successor Sadiq Sharafkandi in Berlin, Germany in 1992, sent the party into disarray and a period of internal rivalry from which the KDP-I has yet to recover.
The German prosecutor has since officially charged Iranian agents for Sharafkandi's killing.
Komala’s decision to join Iran’s Communist Party also deepened divisions within party ranks and further alienated the Kurdish nationalist leftist group in the face of new transformations in Iran after the Iraq-Iran war.
Political commentators view last month’s bombings in Koye as “a wake up call” for the rival Kurdish groups in Iran whose survival may depend on their unified positions against the regional superpower in Tehran.
“We must not remain indifferent when other Kurdish factions are being targeted since we all share common fate,” said Komala Deputy Reza Kaabi.
Kaabi was confident that the commission would provide better protection for the parties and be a ground for future cooperation among them.
“I think there will be very concrete actions after we form the commission,” he added.