ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) has ruled out sending Peshmerga fighters from the Kurdistan Region into the western Kurdish areas of Iran to conduct military operations, saying it has pledged to Baghdad and Erbil not to use Iraqi territory as a launchpad for war against Iran.
“We have discussed this with both the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG]. We have decided and pledged that we will not turn Iraqi Kurdistan or Iraq into a rear front,” Khalid Azizi, the KDPI spokesperson, told Rudaw’s Hiwa Jamal on Monday.
Azizi said the party saw no need to deploy armed units into Iranian Kurdistan, arguing that Kurdish opposition groups and their supporters inside Iran were already engaged in a civil struggle.
“The Democratic Party [KDPI] sees no need in its struggle to send units of Peshmerga into Iranian Kurdistan to wage armed conflict or take military action, while hundreds of thousands of people inside the country are engaged in their own civil struggle,” he said.
His remarks came days after Iranian Consul General Faramarz Asadi accused Iranian Kurdish opposition parties of cooperating with foreign powers and called for their members to be handed over to Tehran.
Azizi also rejected Iran’s characterization of the opposition groups’ camps in the Kurdistan Region as military sites, insisting they were civilian facilities and denying that the KDPI intended to use them as bases for armed operations.
“These camps have never been military camps; they are non-military, civilian camps,” he said, listing youth and women’s union offices, childcare centers, hospitals and schools among the facilities located there.
Azizi said the party had discussed the camps with the Iraqi government, the KRG and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), adding that officials were aware of their civilian nature.
“The Islamic Republic’s claim is completely false and unfounded,” he said, adding that the party was unwilling to turn the camps into military centers or launch military operations from them, either now or in the future.
KDPI remains open to negotiations with Tehran
Despite the absence of what he described as suitable conditions for negotiations, Azizi said the KDPI remained willing to engage in dialogue with Iran if Tehran initiated contact.
“As the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, from very early on, we have always believed in welcoming peaceful solutions, dialogue, meetings, and negotiations,” he said, describing negotiations as a longstanding principle of the party.
Azizi noted that the KDPI had held several rounds of talks with the Islamic Republic following Iran’s 1979 revolution, despite previous negotiations failing to resolve the Kurdish issue and subsequent military confrontations in Kurdistan.
He nevertheless stressed that the party would be prepared to listen if Iranian authorities approached it.
“However, despite that, if the Islamic Republic reaches out to the Democratic Party and says, ‘We would like to speak with you,’ the KDPI is ready to listen to them,” Azizi said.
He added that any subsequent decision would depend on the substance and potential direction of the discussions.
Azizi said the possibility of negotiations had not yet been discussed within the coalition of Iranian Kurdish opposition parties. If Tehran approached the KDPI, he said, the party would consult its allies before proceeding.
His remarks come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.
During the Iran-Israel war that began in late February, the KDPI issued statements supporting an end to Islamic rule in Iran. The party has since rejected Iranian allegations that its newly formed alliance with other Kurdish opposition groups constitutes evidence of cooperation with foreign powers.
In a statement responding to Asadi’s interview with Rudaw on Thursday, the KDPI described the Alliance of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan, announced in February, as a political initiative intended to coordinate efforts to secure Kurdish rights in Iran.
The party accused Tehran of treating Kurdish political and national demands as a security threat and relying on intimidation and force rather than addressing those demands.
Asadi, meanwhile, alleged that foreign powers had pressured five Iranian Kurdish opposition parties to establish the alliance shortly before the war erupted. He described the groups as “terrorists” and called for their members to be returned to Iran through Interpol.
The KDPI in response described Iran as “a terrorist state” and countered that using international mechanisms to return political opposition figures to Iran would violate international protections for refugees and the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning people to places where they face persecution or other serious harm.
The dispute has unfolded alongside repeated Iranian attacks on the Kurdistan Region. The KDPI has said Iran carried out more than 1,200 attacks against the Region since the war began, while Kurdistan Region authorities have reported more than 1,000 drone and missile attacks launched by Iran and Iran-aligned Iraqi armed groups.
Asadi did not rule out further Iranian strikes, saying Tehran continued to regard US interests and Iranian Kurdish opposition groups as potential targets.
