ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A “large number” of Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) troops with heavy weaponry have been stationed on border areas between Iran and the Kurdistan Region, a human rights monitor reported on Sunday, claiming that the fighters plan to "infiltrate" the Region’s borders.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights stated that the IRGC has increased its military presence in areas bordering the Kurdistan Region in recent days, stationing troops along the border of Iran’s Piranshar with Erbil until the mountainous areas of Oshnavieh in Iran’s western Kurdish region (Rojhelat).
“In the past few days, several high-ranking IRGC commanders have come from Tehran to Oshnavieh,” Hengaw’s director Arsalan Yarahmedi told Rudaw English on Sunday, adding “the purpose of this movement appears to be that they [IRGC] are trying to enter the land of the Kurdistan Region.”
Komala, a leftist Kurdish party fighting for Kurdish rights in Iran, claimed on Sunday that the IRGC conducted two offensives “with the support of artillery and heavy weaponry” on Thursday morning, “with the purpose of harming Komala’s Peshmerga and in an attempt to cross the borders of the Kurdistan Region.”
The massing of Iranian troops comes as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and Iran’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-Iran) recently decided to reunite their forces.
The two parties were both initially under the banner of the KDPI, a Kurdish party that has waged an on-and-off armed war against the Iranian government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but split following their 13th congress in 2006.
Yarahmedi said the two parties’ reunion is expected to be announced on Tuesday of this week as the day marks the 43rd anniversary since the KDPI was established.
.jpeg&w=3840&q=75)
