"We would never leave the armed struggle in the mountains and settle in the cities as we did following Dr. Sharafkandi's assassination," says Mustafa Mawloodi, a PDKI deputy and former companion of the slain leader.
The PDKI is remembering a leader who they say had a lasting impact on political struggle in Iranian Kurdistan.
According to Mawloodi the party went through multiple crises and abandoned its leftist approach which it is still suffering from. In the late 2006, the PDKI was divided after years of internal conflict.
Sharafkandi who took over the PDKI after the murder of another influential leader, Abdulrahmam Ghassemlo in 1989, was assassinated in the German capital Berlin on September 17, 1992. Two other senior party officials were also murdered in the mass assassination that German prosecutors officially charged the Iranian government of masterminding.
In the early 1990s the PDKI, which is considered the main Kurdish political armed group in Iran, ended all its military campaigns against the Iranian army largely due to new arrangements between Tehran and the Kurdistan Region, which basically prohibited attacks on Iran from the Kurdish-controlled territories in Iraq.
In June this year, the PDKI resumed their armed campaign for self-rule against the Islamic Republic after nearly two decades of non-military struggle.
Inspired by the growing autonomy of Kurds in the region, PDKI leadership made the decision to “reinvigorate” their political activities in Iranian Kurdistan “to facilitate closer interactions with the Kurdish people,” reads a statement issued by the party in June.
“PDKI has sent its political cadres into different cities to carry our political activities. Due to security concerns, they have been accompanied by Peshmerga Forces,” the statement reads. “The Iranian regime imprisons, tortures and executes Kurdish political activists linked to PKDI and other Kurdish organizations. Considering this reality, PDKI has decided that political cadres should always be accompanied by Peshmerga for protection.”
