KDPI leader says Iran has dirty tricks against Erbil with or without their actions

KOYA, Kurdistan Region—The second-in-command of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), Hassan Sharafi, defends the timing of his party’s armed actions against Iran and warns that if Tehran follows through with its threats they will switch to full offensive mode.

“What we have done so far has been self-defense, but if the Islamic Republic continues this kind of behavior or tries to act out its threats, we will, without a doubt, go from the defense phase to the next,” Sharafi told Rudaw.

Sharafi, a native of the Kurdish city of Mahabad and a KDPI veteran added that his party has the right and necessary plans to move to the next stage of their struggle.

“This is not a message, but a clear answer to the Islamic Republic and its threats,” he said.

Sharafi who is also an official spokesperson for his party dismissed critics who say that the timing of KDPI’s resumption of armed struggle against Iran and the opening of a new front was wrong, arguing that the timing is always right and the right circumstances must be created.

“If we sit and wait till we all get united, till the situation is ripe and the rear defense lines are fortified, till all means are provided, that means never,” said Sharafi, who commanded KDPI’s Peshawa units in the 1980s. “Yes, it needs unity, means and right situation, but you have to create the situation, obtain the means and starting the action otherwise it means no struggle.”

The KDPI second-in-command said that it is time his party resumed and expanded “the struggle that we started against the Islamic Republic years ago.”

Founded in 1946, the KDPI has been the main Kurdish group fighting for political and cultural rights of Iran’s several million Kurds. The group has Peshmerga bases across the border with Iran and offices inside the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

KDPI Peshmerga clashed with Iranian revolutionary guards in the town of Shno and several border areas last month, killing a number of Iranian soldiers to the loss of six of their own Peshmerga.

Sharafi explained that his party ceased armed struggle against Iran two decades ago in order not to harm relations between Erbil and Tehran.

“Let me tell you, for 20 years we have been protecting the Kurdistan Region (of Iraq) in the sense that we did not use every means of struggle we had. We have used some method and avoided others that we knew would be sensitive to the Islamic Republic and lead to pressure on the Kurdish government,” Sharafi said.

“But there must be an end to that,” he stressed.

He maintained that the Kurds of one part must take into account the interests of another part, hinting that Iranian Kurds can no longer sit idly for the sake of the Kurdistan Region.

“At the end of the day we are all Kurds and must take into account the interests of all Kurds. It is not fair for one part of Kurdistan to sacrifice for its own sake the interest of all other parts of Kurdistan.” Sharafi said.

He also rejected comments that the KDPI’s armed actions would mobilize Iran militarily against the Kurdistan Region which was reflected in a threatening speech by Iran’s second-in-command General Hossein Salami last week.

“Believe me, even without the recent clashes Iran still had plots against the Kurdistan Region despite its claim of having good relations with them,” Sharafi argued. “For example, when the Kurdistan Region speaks of referendum and independence top Iranian leaders threaten to turn the entire Middle East upside down.”