ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Exiled Iranian Kurdish parties are protesting a decision to build a wall around a camp in Koya housing Kurds who crossed the border seeking refuge. The wall is part of a security pact signed last year between Iraq and Iran.
Hamanazif Qadiri, an official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), told Rudaw on Friday that a decision was made to “build a wall that surrounds Koya’s Azadi camp where Kurds from eastern Kurdistan [Iran] reside.”
Qadiri said they will soon meet with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the area where the camp is located, to discuss the issue.
Bestoon Fayaq, an advisor to the PUK leader Bafel Talabani, told Rudaw that building the wall is “within the framework of the pact between Iraq and Iran, which was signed with the knowledge of the Kurdistan Region and the supervision of the United Nations.”
The security pact signed between Iran and Iraq last March saw Baghdad agree to disarm Kurdish opposition groups and secure the border regions. Iran had threatened to use military action if Baghdad failed to fulfill the agreement. In September, Baghdad announced that it had disarmed the exiled Kurdish groups on the border and that offices previously used by the groups had been evacuated.
"It is not clear whether the wall will be built, but if it is, it will be the implementation of the agreement reached between the two countries,” Fayaq said.
Qadiri said they are aware that building a wall is part of the security pact, “but that does not mean that whatever was in the agreement will be accepted.”
Tehran has long accused the KRG of harboring opposition groups it considers threats to its national security and allowing them to use the border areas as a launchpad for attacks.
Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region - namely the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), Komala, Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), and the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) - were accused of fueling Iran’s nationwide protest movement in 2022 and inciting unrest in the country. The groups, struggling for greater rights for Iran’s marginalized Kurdish population, have fought an on-and-off war with the Islamic Republic.
Iranian armed forces have carried out numerous attacks on the alleged positions of these groups, using both ballistic missiles and drones.
