COPENHAGEN, Denmark – The struggle for Kurdish rights in Iran suffered an irreversible blow with the 1992 assassination of Sadegh Sharafkandi, overseas Iranian Kurds and academics said on the 22nd anniversary of the killing.
Sharafkandi, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (KDPI), was murdered by assassins at Berlin’s Mykonos restaurant on September 17, 1992, along with two of his deputies.
In an April 1997 ruling, a German court issued an international arrest warrant for former Iranian intelligence minister Ali Fallahian, declaring that the assassinations had been ordered by him, with knowledge of Iran’s top leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The killing came three years after the KDPI’s previous leader, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, suffered the same fate in Vienna.
Experts say that the two assassinations were severe blows that significantly weakened the KDPI.
Fuad Khakibegi, head of Youth Organization of KDPI (Lawan), commemorated the assassinated leader in Copenhagen and remembered Sharafkandi as the man who filled the political vacuum after the charismatic Ghassemlou.
“After Ghassemlou’s martyrdom many of our members and supporters lost hope. But with the slogan 'Ghassemlou is no longer here but we will continue' he (Sharafkandi) gave them new motivation,” Khakibegi said.
Abbas Vali, a professor and author of several books on Iran’s Kurds, noted that the Iranian regime succeeded in eliminating effective opposition to the ruling theocracy with the two assassinations.
The KDPI "never recovered after the assassinations. They had now no strong personality to keep the party as a unit," Vali said, noting that the party split into two after Sharafkandi’s death.
Ahmet Alis, a historian at the Bogazici University in Istanbul, agreed. He noted that after the formation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, where the KDPI cadres and headquarters are based, the party agreed to end armed struggle against the Islamic Republic.
"After Vienna and Berlin, the ending of the armed struggle and KDPI's internal problems, the KDPI and the Iranian-Kurdish opposition has been marginalized," Alis said. "The Iranian Kurds since have had no charismatic leaders."
Khakibegi admitted that his party has been "weakened by Iran's assassinations, and by internal problems.”
"We agreed not to attack Iran from the Kurdistan Region to prevent retaliatory attacks by Iran, because we do not want to harm the interests of the Kurds in Iraq," he said.
Rostam Jahangiri, a politburo member of KDPI who had worked closely with Sharafkandi, said that the trial in Germany had succeeded in putting an end to Iranian assassinations abroad.
"The trial in Germany succeeded in sending Iran a strong signal and stopped the Islamic Republic’s terrorism in Europe,” he said. “After Sharafkandi the Europeans woke up."
Mina Ghassemlou, daughter of the assassinated leader, said her father "gave his whole life for the Kurdish cause."
"We are pleased with the German trial after Sharafkandi. But the murderers in my father’s case have still not been brought to justice. Therefore, our struggle continues," she said.
Ghassemlou and two friends were shot dead while in secret talks with Iranian agents at a Vienna flat. Austrian police arrested two suspects, revealed to be diplomats assigned to the Iranian Embassy in Vienna. But they were allowed to leave for Tehran.
Jahangiri said that KDPI leaders "always fear a repetition of Vienna and Berlin."
"We see that Iran is involved in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. After Berlin in 1992, no one has been martyred in Europe. But there is always a fear."
Supporters in Canada, France, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Iraqi Kurdistan have been commemorating the 22nd anniversary of Sharafkandi’s death.
