“The Islamic Republic wants to show an Island of peace in the war zone of the Middle East by using force and violence against different voices inside the country including Kurds and other nations,” said KDPI leader Mustafa Hejri in a speech on Sunday. “They want to say the silence means satisfaction. That is not the true face of Iran.”
KDPI Peshmerga have fought with Iranian soldiers in the town of Shno and surrounding areas in recent days which has led to the death of several on both sides.
“The current relative peace is due to dictatorship and internal suffocation,” Hejri added.
The KDPI leader said his party has decided to move its Peshmarga forces into the Iranian Kurdistan after two decades of unilateral ceasefire that saw an end to military actions inside Iran since the late 1990s.
Hejri was speaking at a ceremony held in the capital city of the Kurdistan Region, Erbil, to honor six of his fighters who died fighting Iranian security forces in Shno last week.
“When the leadership council decided to send our forces back to Iran for political activities we knew the risks but we realized that we must sacrifice as we used to do in the past,” Hejri told an audience of about 500 people including families of his Peshmerga forces, activists and representatives of other Iranian Kurdish political parties.
He labeled Tehran as a regional actor that not only is against its own Kurdish population but also against Kurds in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, saying that Iran interferers in the affairs of others by trying to “show that they have solutions,”
Hejri went on to say that Iran was behind some of the crisis in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq including the financial crisis, war with the Islamic State (ISIS) and political unrest.
The KDPI leader justified the recent decision to bring the war into the cities, saying the experience of the last 37 years has shown that “Iran is against freedom and our national rights.”
The Kurdish Komala Party that takes a more left leaning approach to the Kurdish question in Iran also expressed support for KDPI’s recent confrontations with the revolutionary guards, saying on Sunday that they were ready to help the party militarily.
“We are close to them (PDKI). We will do whatever we can for them. We have always been on alert, and when something like this happens we must be more conscious. Regarding moving our forces, it’s close, too.” Abdullah Azarbar, head of Komala military council told Rudaw.
Raza Kaabi, Deputy Secretary of Komala likewise repeated his party’s sympathy for KDPI and said, “We have plans to support (PDKI) Peshmerga militarily, and anything they need, no matter which party they belong to. We support this fight, and we ask people to help these Peshmerga.”
Political differences would not hamper the Kurdish fight in Iran, said Hejri, and that all parties were united behind the same goal.
“We might have different history of fighting, we might have some political differences but today we showed that the goal of all of us is to protect homeland,” he said. “Kurdistan (Iranian Kurdistan) is home to all of us. When there is success it is the success of all of us and when there is misery we will all share the sorrow.”
