Latest news with #Kurds
Shafaq News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Shafaq News
SDF's Abdi: open to dialogue with Damascus over decentralization
Shafaq News/ On Friday, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, vowed that any integration of the SDF into the Syrian military must come as part of a comprehensive political agreement based on decentralization within a mutually accepted national framework. In an interview with Shams TV, Abdi said such a process could take years, rejecting what he described as quick or superficial solutions that fail to address the core of the Kurdish issue. 'We are committed to preserving our achievements and will not accept any arrangements that take us back to square one,' Abdi said. While acknowledging that Kurds have faced decades of marginalization, Abdi affirmed that they remain open to dialogue with Damascus. He stressed that the SDF is a fundamental part of Syria's future and added, 'We will not accept a repeat of the marginalization we have endured.' Earlier in March, Abdi and Syria's transitional President, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, reached an agreement to integrate the SDF into the country's official military structure, transferring all its territories, border crossings, and oil fields while rejecting any calls for division.
Shafaq News
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Seeking recognition: Syrian Kurds ready for Damascus talks
Shafaq News/ On Friday, the Kurdish National Council (KNC) in Syria confirmed its readiness to engage in direct talks with the Syrian government. Faissal Youssef, KNC spokesperson, told Shafaq News that Kurds have long endured marginalization under successive Syrian governments and seek recognition of their identity and rights. 'This is not a new issue—our demands go back to the establishment of the modern Syrian state." Youssef stressed that the KNC remains committed to unity and political resolution. 'Our delegation represents the broad majority of Kurdish political and social actors, and is fully prepared to travel to Damascus once the appropriate opportunity arises.' Negotiations are expected to focus on securing national-level recognition of the Kurds as Syria's second-largest ethnic group and ensuring their representation in all state institutions. A separate delegation from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria is also reportedly set to meet with government officials to discuss administrative and military arrangements in the northeast, due to conflicts between the two parties. The talks follow a March 10 agreement between Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander Mazloum Abdi, outlining the integration of all military and civil bodies— including border crossings and oil fields—into the state framework by the end of 2025, and rejecting any calls for division. It also commits both parties to a nationwide ceasefire and affirms equal representation in political and public institutions, based on merit rather than ethnicity or religion. 'The Kurdish movement has reached consensus on the vision for Syria's future and the framework for dialogue,' Youssef said. 'The international support for the Kurdish Unity Conference, including from the US and France, reflects recognition of our legitimacy.' The renewed dialogue efforts come as Western powers, including the European Union and the United States, reengage diplomatically in Syria to "stabilize areas outside regime control and prevent further fragmentation."
Miami Herald
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Iran's Dissident Kurds Seek US Help to Overthrow Government
The head of a dissident Iranian Kurdish movement has told Newsweek his group is urging the United States to foster contacts with opposition factions in the Islamic Republic to undermine and ultimately overthrow the government. "We think that the administration should have an open-door policy with the Democratic opposition to the Iranian regime, like Kurdish people, like different ethnic minorities, different ethnic political groups, providing they are not terrorists, providing they are not undemocratic," Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary-general of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, told Newsweek. "We think it is in the best national the United States to have a direct dialogue with the different components of the Iranian opposition," he added, "because if the United States has ties with them, the regime might collapse under pressure from domestic crises." And while some critics of Iran voice opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to strike a nuclear agreement with Tehran, Mohtadi felt a deal that restricted the Islamic Republic's nuclear program would only further serve to impair, rather than empower, the government. "We stand for a non-nuclear Iran, like the Trump administration does," Mohtadi said. "We also share the administration's policy of countering Iran's malign activity in the region. In my opinion, a deal based on these points does not strengthen the regime. In fact, it weakens it." Iran is a diverse nation comprising a variety of ethnic communities, the largest of which is the Persian community. Other sizable groups include Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Lurs and Balochis. Kurds, often considered the world's largest stateless people, primarily inhabit territory spanning Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, with Iranian Kurds mostly present in the northwestern provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam and parts of Hamadan and Lorestan. Kurds are estimated to comprise around 10 percent of the Iranian population, constituting approximately 8–12 million people. They are largely Sunni Muslim, while the vast majority of Iranians adhere to Shiite Islam. As is the case with the other three countries in which substantial Kurdish populations reside, Iran has a troubled history with its Kurdish minority, some of whom have accused the ruling governments of suppressing their rights dating back centuries and some of whom have resorted to force to challenge authorities. Kurdish groups have also been used as proxies in rivalries between regional powers, both during and after Iran's monarchist era that ended with the 1979 Islamic Revolution. During the 1980s Iran-Iraq War that ensued, Kurdish factions on both sides fought against their respective governments. Komala emerged as one of the leading Kurdish armed groups, adopting a Marxist-Leninist outlook, to challenge the newly formed Islamic Republic. The party has operated largely underground, establishing networks both within the country and abroad. The group has also splintered several times, with Mohtadi's faction splitting from the Communist Party wing in 2000. For more than a decade, Mohtadi has sought to foster U.S. contacts and in 2018, under the first Trump administration, Komala opened its first office in Washington, D.C. Other leading Kurdish movements in Iran include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). Like Komala, these groups have been engaged in clashes with Iranian security personnel, including deadly incidents that have taken place in recent years. All three parties are designated terrorist organizations by the Iranian government, and Komala is also viewed as a terrorist organization. A representative of PDKI declined to comment to Newsweek. Newsweek has also reached out to PJAK, the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, and the U.S. Department of State for comment. After Mohtadi previously appealed for U.S. support during an October 2022 interview with Newsweek, the Iranian Mission reiterated that the "Komala Party is identified as an active terrorist group that has martyred hundreds of people in Mahabad and other cities in Iran." "If the US administration is committed to fighting terrorism, there should not be any adequate means and facilities for political activities and meetings at the disposal of this group," the Iranian Mission told Newsweek at the time. Mohtadi emphasized, however, that he no longer views armed resistance as the most viable path toward achieving Komala's aims in Iran, noting the recent disbanding of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in its decades-long insurgency against Turkey. "Kurds have been struggling for their rights for decades, hundreds of years," Mohtadi said. But I believe that the era of armed struggle, or getting victory through armed struggle, is over, and the PKK disarmament is a kind of [an] example for that." "Our success in organizing general strikes and in organizing the mass movements during the Jina revolution also is a testament to that effect," he added. The Jina movement refers to the large-scale protests under the banner of "Women, Life, Freedom" that erupted across Iran in response to the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina, or Zhina, Amini, while in police custody in September 2022. Activists have accused Iranian authorities of killing Amini after her detention on charges of failing to adhere to the country's dress code. Iranian officials have rejected this narrative, pointing to an investigation that allegedly showed she died of natural causes. Her cousin, a member of Komala's communist faction, has denied that she had any ties to Kurdish opposition groups. Mohtadi said Komala has played a leading role in promoting Kurdish opposition efforts through the protest movement, organizing strikes and other forms of civil disobedience. In doing so, he said, he has allied with PDKI, though he rejected the continued practice of attacking Iranian personnel as carried out by PJAK, which was most recently tied to the killing of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) soldier in October. "As far as far as the civil movements are concerned, I think they are more effective than Kalashnikovs now," Mohtadi said, "and the Jina movement, the Woman, Life Freedom movement, proved it." Through the Women, Life, Freedom movement, Mohtadi said Komala is "seeking and actively fighting for a Kurdish united front inside Iranian Kurdistan." He said this effort includes reinvigorating young Iranian Kurds to take action on the streets. The large-scale protests and unrest that emerged after Amini's death drew international attention to both women's rights and Kurdish rights in Iran, while drawing domestic outrage toward hardliners in the government. Some took their hopes for change to the ballots. Last August, following the death of principalist President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who hails from Azeri-Turkish roots, won a snap election on a platform that included promoting the rights of ethnic minorities, including Kurds. Pezeshkian appointed the first Sunni Kurdish governor of the Kurdistan province in 45 years and chose the semiautonomous Kurdish region of neighboring Iraq as his first foreign visit. However, Mohtadi envisions more comprehensive measures that would grant Kurds greater self-rule within Iran, similar to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). Both quasi-states were established with direct support from Washington in the wake of the Gulf War and the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, respectively. "We do not copy their model, but generally speaking, yes, we are for a federal Iran," Mohtadi said, "as my party and my people in Iranian Kurdistan supports a federal, democratic political structure in the future of Iran, which means that people have a say in running their own affairs in the Kurdish regions." He affirmed that this would include local, Kurdish leadership tasked with overseeing matters of governance, education and even security. But Mohtadi argued that Komala's work was not solely targeted toward Iranian Kurds and also sought to foster cooperation with other ethnic communities and opposition movements, including both republicans and monarchists, "with the exception of extremists, radical Islamists and those who engage in terrorist activities." Such fringe groups, he argued, are "not useful to the democratic movement against the regime. Sometimes, in fact, they are harmful." He cited an example of a recent alliance he struck with Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi that was ultimately "sabotaged by extremist monarchists." Disunity has also plagued Kurdish movements abroad, whose gains remain limited and face constant threats of reversal. When Iraq's KRG moved to seek independence in 2017, nearly every regional country, along with the U.S., opposed the measure. In response to the vote, Iraqi troops retook vast swathes of territory seized by Kurdish forces during their joint fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). Two court rulings in Baghdad last year paved the way for further centralization in Iraq, removing a parliamentary quota system for electing minorities and revoking the KRG's authority to distribute salaries to its employees. Even more recently in Syria, the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, who lead the AANES, signed an agreement in March to become integrated into the central government in Damascus, now headed by Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former Islamist militant chief credited with leading the rebel offensive that toppled President Bashar al-Assad in December. Two months later, mutual distrust remains. While Sharaa has promised to afford greater recognition to Syrian Kurds, he has rejected calls for greater decentralization and talk of separatist ideals. Despite these setbacks, Mohtadi remained optimistic about what lies ahead for Kuds in Iran and beyond, while acknowledging the need to continue striving for greater international support. "We have to raise our political awareness about the Kurdish rights and the Kurdish issue in the West, in the United States, with the administration, with the media, with the Congress," Mohtadi said. "We have to continue our work. It takes time, but we will succeed. We will succeed. I'm hopeful for the future of the Kurds more than before." However, while generally supportive of the Kurdish cause in other countries, such as Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Mohtadi was reluctant to frame Komala's current goals as being linked to the long-sought establishment of a united, independent Kurdistan spanning all four nations. "This is the dream of every Kurd, and it is something we deserve, but it should be left to future generations to resolve," Mohtadi said. "At this stage, every part of Kurdistan should seek their respective rights within the boundaries of the countries in which there are significant Kurdish populations." Still, the Kurdish issue has a tendency to transcend borders. A number of Iranian Kurdish factions, including PJAK and Komala's Communist Party and Reform factions, are known to operate in Iraq's Kurdish regions. The Iranian military has occasionally launched attacks against Kurdish targets, most recently in January of last year, when the IRGC conducted a series of missile strikes against what Iranian officials alleged to be a base for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in the KRG capital of Erbil. Leadership in both Baghdad and Erbil rejected the supposed Israeli presence in northern Iraq. Israel does, however, have a long history of seeking to promote ties with Kurdish movements across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Mossad leadership has in past decades made direct contact with Iraqi Kurdish officials, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first and potentially only world leader to support the KRG's independence bid in 2017, prompting further regional backlash. The situation in Iran is in some ways even more complicated. Netanyahu, having played a pivotal role in supporting Trump's 2018 decision to scrap the nuclear deal secured by former President Barack Obama three years earlier, is once again fueling skepticism toward a new agreement with Tehran. In place of diplomacy, the Israeli premier has repeatedly threatened strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, with some officials calling for preemptive joint action alongside the U.S. Trump, however, has downplayed his enthusiasm for such kinetic measures, and has warned Netanyahu against taking unilateral action that could threaten the ongoing nuclear negotiations. Mohtadi, for his part, was similarly cautious about the prospect of foreign military action against Iran, though he did not rule out forging a partnership with Israel. "We welcome any support from any democratic country in the region or in the West for our struggle against this regime," Mohtadi said. "We haven't had any. What we need is in the future is that a free, democratic Iran, will not be an enemy of Israel." "We do not want this slogan of destruction of Israel to continue in the future," he added. "We don't want hostilities against the United States and the West. We do not want hostilities against our neighbors in the future and the remedy for all of these bad policies is a democratic change in Iran." Related Articles Iran May Hold the Key to Trump's Nuclear RevolutionUS and Iran Nuclear Deal Could Be Sealed at Next Meeting: ReportTrump Says Iran Strike Would Be 'Inappropriate' for Israel Amid TalksChina's Military Presence Grows on Doorstep of New U.S. Partner 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Newsweek
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Iran's Dissident Kurds Seek US Help to Overthrow Government
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The head of a dissident Iranian Kurdish movement has told Newsweek his group is urging the United States to foster contacts with opposition factions in the Islamic Republic to undermine and ultimately overthrow the government. "We think that the administration should have an open-door policy with the Democratic opposition to the Iranian regime, like Kurdish people, like different ethnic minorities, different ethnic political groups, providing they are not terrorists, providing they are not undemocratic," Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary-general of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, told Newsweek. "We think it is in the best national the United States to have a direct dialogue with the different components of the Iranian opposition," he added, "because if the United States has ties with them, the regime might collapse under pressure from domestic crises." And while some critics of Iran voice opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to strike a nuclear agreement with Tehran, Mohtadi felt a deal that restricted the Islamic Republic's nuclear program would only further serve to impair, rather than empower, the government. "We stand for a non-nuclear Iran, like the Trump administration does," Mohtadi said. "We also share the administration's policy of countering Iran's malign activity in the region. In my opinion, a deal based on these points does not strengthen the regime. In fact, it weakens it." Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan Secretary-General Abdullah Mohtadi speaks during the group's 16th congress, held in November 2024, in Denmark. Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan Secretary-General Abdullah Mohtadi speaks during the group's 16th congress, held in November 2024, in Denmark. Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan The Kurdish Struggle in Iran Iran is a diverse nation comprising a variety of ethnic communities, the largest of which is the Persian community. Other sizable groups include Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Lurs and Balochis. Kurds, often considered the world's largest stateless people, primarily inhabit territory spanning Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, with Iranian Kurds mostly present in the northwestern provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam and parts of Hamadan and Lorestan. Kurds are estimated to comprise around 10 percent of the Iranian population, constituting approximately 8–12 million people. They are largely Sunni Muslim, while the vast majority of Iranians adhere to Shiite Islam. As is the case with the other three countries in which substantial Kurdish populations reside, Iran has a troubled history with its Kurdish minority, some of whom have accused the ruling governments of suppressing their rights dating back centuries and some of whom have resorted to force to challenge authorities. Kurdish groups have also been used as proxies in rivalries between regional powers, both during and after Iran's monarchist era that ended with the 1979 Islamic Revolution. During the 1980s Iran-Iraq War that ensued, Kurdish factions on both sides fought against their respective governments. Komala emerged as one of the leading Kurdish armed groups, adopting a Marxist-Leninist outlook, to challenge the newly formed Islamic Republic. The party has operated largely underground, establishing networks both within the country and abroad. The group has also splintered several times, with Mohtadi's faction splitting from the Communist Party wing in 2000. For more than a decade, Mohtadi has sought to foster U.S. contacts and in 2018, under the first Trump administration, Komala opened its first office in Washington, D.C. Other leading Kurdish movements in Iran include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). Like Komala, these groups have been engaged in clashes with Iranian security personnel, including deadly incidents that have taken place in recent years. All three parties are designated terrorist organizations by the Iranian government, and Komala is also viewed as a terrorist organization. A representative of PDKI declined to comment to Newsweek. Newsweek has also reached out to PJAK, the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, and the U.S. Department of State for comment. After Mohtadi previously appealed for U.S. support during an October 2022 interview with Newsweek, the Iranian Mission reiterated that the "Komala Party is identified as an active terrorist group that has martyred hundreds of people in Mahabad and other cities in Iran." "If the US administration is committed to fighting terrorism, there should not be any adequate means and facilities for political activities and meetings at the disposal of this group," the Iranian Mission told Newsweek at the time. Mohtadi emphasized, however, that he no longer views armed resistance as the most viable path toward achieving Komala's aims in Iran, noting the recent disbanding of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in its decades-long insurgency against Turkey. "Kurds have been struggling for their rights for decades, hundreds of years," Mohtadi said. But I believe that the era of armed struggle, or getting victory through armed struggle, is over, and the PKK disarmament is a kind of [an] example for that." "Our success in organizing general strikes and in organizing the mass movements during the Jina revolution also is a testament to that effect," he added. The Jina movement refers to the large-scale protests under the banner of "Women, Life, Freedom" that erupted across Iran in response to the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina, or Zhina, Amini, while in police custody in September 2022. Activists have accused Iranian authorities of killing Amini after her detention on charges of failing to adhere to the country's dress code. Iranian officials have rejected this narrative, pointing to an investigation that allegedly showed she died of natural causes. Her cousin, a member of Komala's communist faction, has denied that she had any ties to Kurdish opposition groups. Mohtadi said Komala has played a leading role in promoting Kurdish opposition efforts through the protest movement, organizing strikes and other forms of civil disobedience. In doing so, he said, he has allied with PDKI, though he rejected the continued practice of attacking Iranian personnel as carried out by PJAK, which was most recently tied to the killing of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) soldier in October. "As far as far as the civil movements are concerned, I think they are more effective than Kalashnikovs now," Mohtadi said, "and the Jina movement, the Woman, Life Freedom movement, proved it." Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by Iranian police, in Tehran, on October 1, 2022. Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by Iranian police, in Tehran, on October 1, 2022. AP/Middle East Images A State Within A State Through the Women, Life, Freedom movement, Mohtadi said Komala is "seeking and actively fighting for a Kurdish united front inside Iranian Kurdistan." He said this effort includes reinvigorating young Iranian Kurds to take action on the streets. The large-scale protests and unrest that emerged after Amini's death drew international attention to both women's rights and Kurdish rights in Iran, while drawing domestic outrage toward hardliners in the government. Some took their hopes for change to the ballots. Last August, following the death of principalist President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who hails from Azeri-Turkish roots, won a snap election on a platform that included promoting the rights of ethnic minorities, including Kurds. Pezeshkian appointed the first Sunni Kurdish governor of the Kurdistan province in 45 years and chose the semiautonomous Kurdish region of neighboring Iraq as his first foreign visit. However, Mohtadi envisions more comprehensive measures that would grant Kurds greater self-rule within Iran, similar to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). Both quasi-states were established with direct support from Washington in the wake of the Gulf War and the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, respectively. "We do not copy their model, but generally speaking, yes, we are for a federal Iran," Mohtadi said, "as my party and my people in Iranian Kurdistan supports a federal, democratic political structure in the future of Iran, which means that people have a say in running their own affairs in the Kurdish regions." He affirmed that this would include local, Kurdish leadership tasked with overseeing matters of governance, education and even security. But Mohtadi argued that Komala's work was not solely targeted toward Iranian Kurds and also sought to foster cooperation with other ethnic communities and opposition movements, including both republicans and monarchists, "with the exception of extremists, radical Islamists and those who engage in terrorist activities." Such fringe groups, he argued, are "not useful to the democratic movement against the regime. Sometimes, in fact, they are harmful." He cited an example of a recent alliance he struck with Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi that was ultimately "sabotaged by extremist monarchists." Disunity has also plagued Kurdish movements abroad, whose gains remain limited and face constant threats of reversal. When Iraq's KRG moved to seek independence in 2017, nearly every regional country, along with the U.S., opposed the measure. In response to the vote, Iraqi troops retook vast swathes of territory seized by Kurdish forces during their joint fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). Two court rulings in Baghdad last year paved the way for further centralization in Iraq, removing a parliamentary quota system for electing minorities and revoking the KRG's authority to distribute salaries to its employees. Even more recently in Syria, the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, who lead the AANES, signed an agreement in March to become integrated into the central government in Damascus, now headed by Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former Islamist militant chief credited with leading the rebel offensive that toppled President Bashar al-Assad in December. Two months later, mutual distrust remains. While Sharaa has promised to afford greater recognition to Syrian Kurds, he has rejected calls for greater decentralization and talk of separatist ideals. Despite these setbacks, Mohtadi remained optimistic about what lies ahead for Kuds in Iran and beyond, while acknowledging the need to continue striving for greater international support. "We have to raise our political awareness about the Kurdish rights and the Kurdish issue in the West, in the United States, with the administration, with the media, with the Congress," Mohtadi said. "We have to continue our work. It takes time, but we will succeed. We will succeed. I'm hopeful for the future of the Kurds more than before." However, while generally supportive of the Kurdish cause in other countries, such as Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Mohtadi was reluctant to frame Komala's current goals as being linked to the long-sought establishment of a united, independent Kurdistan spanning all four nations. "This is the dream of every Kurd, and it is something we deserve, but it should be left to future generations to resolve," Mohtadi said. "At this stage, every part of Kurdistan should seek their respective rights within the boundaries of the countries in which there are significant Kurdish populations." A civil defense team carries out search and rescue operations following a missile strike by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps on Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government capital of Erbil, on January 17, 2024. A civil defense team carries out search and rescue operations following a missile strike by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps on Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government capital of Erbil, on January 17, 2024. SAFIN HAMID/AFP/Getty Images Regional Spillover Still, the Kurdish issue has a tendency to transcend borders. A number of Iranian Kurdish factions, including PJAK and Komala's Communist Party and Reform factions, are known to operate in Iraq's Kurdish regions. The Iranian military has occasionally launched attacks against Kurdish targets, most recently in January of last year, when the IRGC conducted a series of missile strikes against what Iranian officials alleged to be a base for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in the KRG capital of Erbil. Leadership in both Baghdad and Erbil rejected the supposed Israeli presence in northern Iraq. Israel does, however, have a long history of seeking to promote ties with Kurdish movements across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Mossad leadership has in past decades made direct contact with Iraqi Kurdish officials, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first and potentially only world leader to support the KRG's independence bid in 2017, prompting further regional backlash. The situation in Iran is in some ways even more complicated. Netanyahu, having played a pivotal role in supporting Trump's 2018 decision to scrap the nuclear deal secured by former President Barack Obama three years earlier, is once again fueling skepticism toward a new agreement with Tehran. In place of diplomacy, the Israeli premier has repeatedly threatened strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, with some officials calling for preemptive joint action alongside the U.S. Trump, however, has downplayed his enthusiasm for such kinetic measures, and has warned Netanyahu against taking unilateral action that could threaten the ongoing nuclear negotiations. Mohtadi, for his part, was similarly cautious about the prospect of foreign military action against Iran, though he did not rule out forging a partnership with Israel. "We welcome any support from any democratic country in the region or in the West for our struggle against this regime," Mohtadi said. "We haven't had any. What we need is in the future is that a free, democratic Iran, will not be an enemy of Israel." "We do not want this slogan of destruction of Israel to continue in the future," he added. "We don't want hostilities against the United States and the West. We do not want hostilities against our neighbors in the future and the remedy for all of these bad policies is a democratic change in Iran."
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
What does the PKK's disbanding mean for Turkey's pro-Kurdish movement?
After almost half a century, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has agreed to disband following an order given by its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan. The founding of the party in 1978 by a group of left-wing Kurds in southeastern Turkey was driven by a belief that parliamentary politics in the country was cut-off to those seeking Kurdish autonomy or independence, something that appeared confirmed by the imposition of military rule two years later. The end of the PKK's decades of armed struggle was justified by Ocalan on the grounds that the future for Kurdish politics was peaceful, but 'requires the recognition of democratic politics and the legal aspect', in apparent reference to the repeated strangling of non-violent pro-Kurdish parties in Turkey over the past 100 years. The achievements of peaceful or violent pro-Kurdish activity have been limited in recent decades - Kurdish politicians are still regularly arrested or replaced, while tentative gains in cultural and linguistic representation made since the 2000s and 2010s have been largely reversed. If the PKK follows through on its promise, the most prominent organisation fighting for Kurdish rights in Turkey will be the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Like most pro-Kurdish political parties, the DEM Party is just the latest incarnation of parties that have been repeatedly forcibly shuttered by court orders over their supposed threat to the constitutional order. The DEM Party was born out of the Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) after it merged with the Green Left Party (YSP) in 2023 to circumvent a proposed ban. The HDP's most prominent leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, are both still in prison, along with thousands of others affiliated with the party. Despite being the third-largest party in parliament and being elected to local office across the mainly Kurdish southeast, the state has continued to replace local DEM politicians and mayors, replacing them with unelected 'trustees', usually over claims of support for 'terrorism' - though Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said this would become 'rare' after the PKK disbands. 'When there is ongoing conflict and violence, politics ultimately has limitations' - Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, DEM Party MP DEM Party representatives and members of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) were set to meet on Wednesday with the aim of forwarding the process. The meeting came a day after a separate meeting with the allied - and historically staunchly anti-Kurdish - Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose leader Devlet Bahceli last October became the public face of the current push for what he calls a 'terror-free Turkey.' Any discussion over a future peace process is likely to be fraught with difficulty after so many decades of conflict, with a range of issues including the release of prisoners, constitutional change, the deepening of regional democracy and cultural rights all potential hurdles. Just last week, Mehmet Ucum, an AKP MP and Erdogan's chief legal advisor, hit out at references by the DEM Party to 'political prisoners' in Turkey's jails. 'There are no political prisoners in Turkey,' he wrote on X, saying the party needed to abandon its 'ideological-political' views on the subject. There is also the question of what role the DEM Party can play as leaders of a broader left-wing progressive movement in Turkey, as a party that represents the interests of workers, women, environmentalists, LGBTQ campaigners and other minority groups in Turkey. Publicly, the DEM leadership expresses optimism on both fronts. Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, an MP for the city of Kars in northeastern Turkey and deputy chair of the parliamentary DEM Party Group, is one of those involved in the discussions with both the AKP and MHP. She is no stranger to the passions the issue can enflame - during a parliamentary session last year, she was punched in the face by an AKP MP during a heated discussion over the expulsion of a left-wing MP from parliament. 'When there is ongoing conflict and violence, politics ultimately has limitations. This goes for all political contexts,' she told Middle East Eye. 'But if there is no longer grounds for violence and conflict, it means that we have entered a new phase, in which a solution is sought politically. And in this regard, of course, new responsibilities, new tasks, fall upon political parties, social arenas of struggle - everyone.' She added that they had no intention of treating the negotiations as a matter of trade-offs and hit back at criticisms made by some other opposition politicians that they had become too conciliatory with parties who had long been their opponents. "We've never had the approach of saying, 'Let's do this, so the AKP gives us this or we'll take this step, so the AKP does this.' This has never been our approach," she said. "We don't do politics for ourselves, and we are not struggling for our own interests. We are fighting for the peoples of this country, the Kurdish people, and all the peoples living in this country." Deciding priorities Although the DEM Party is heavily associated with the Kurdish movement, it is officially a coalition of a range of parties, some representing minority groups, some left-libertarian parties and some orthodox Marxist-Leninists. The party's co-leaders - mandated as part of its commitment to gender parity - include Tulay Hatimogullari, a linguistic rights campaigner of Arab and Alawi heritage. Apart from backing the rights of Turkey's numerous and often forgotten minorities, including Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Alevis, Laz and Circassians, the party has staked out a strong workers' rights position and supports LGBTQ rights. But the party, much like its predecessor the HDP, has faced accusations from the government, Turkish nationalists and even other leftists of merely being a front for the PKK. The proposed end of the PKK as an organisation has also led to speculation that the group's cadres - currently based primarily in northern Iraq - could return to Turkey and take up positions within the DEM Party, a move that would further strengthen the perception of the party as an organisation primarily concerned with the Kurdish issue. Supporters of the DEM Party, as well as analysts, acknowledged to MEE that there had long been a tension between the party's left wing and its pro-Kurdish wing and resolving this would be key in future. 'If the DEM Party adopts a political line that, while considering the Kurdish identity, also embraces the demands of non-Kurdish voters - workers, youth, women, ecologists - it could become the nucleus of broader democratic alliances,' said Ahmet Asena, a co-spokesperson for the YSP. Turkey and the PKK: Who is Abdullah Ocalan? Read More » He said that the party's predecessors had also supported this range of causes, but that the backdrop of the armed struggle had overshadowed efforts to focus on them, with the media always returning to the question of the PKK. Though Turkish leftists had long provided a small base of support for the DEM Party and its predecessors, the conflict with the PKK - which over the decades has seen more than 45,000 deaths according to some estimates - and the prominence of Turkish nationalist discourse tended to push secular, Alevi and centre-left voters to support the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), while electoral support for the DEM Party remains centred in the Kurdish-majority regions. Kocyigit admitted that the Kurdish issue was currently the 'top matter' in their political platform. 'We have taken a stance that goes beyond day-to-day political interests, one that [focuses] on the Kurdish question, a democratic resolution, and an end to the bloodshed, and we are shaping our overall policy around this,' she explained. Nevertheless, she said the party remained true to their charter and 'core principles,' adding that they were focusing on the emancipation of Kurds in a fashion that will 'matter in a way that will benefit all peoples of Turkey.' Imamoglu's arrest One major point of controversy for the DEM Party at the moment is how to approach the issue of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. The CHP mayor, whose original election in 2019 stemmed in large part from the decision by the then-HDP not to run a candidate against him, has been in jail since March 2025 on a range of what his supporters say are trumped-up charges, including - perhaps ironically - supporting the PKK. After years of the detention and dismissal of HDP politicians over terrorism accusations, sometimes with the acquiescence of the CHP, the party of Turkey's founder Ataturk are now the ones facing the state's bootheel, its representatives and functionaries imprisoned and sacked. Protesters hold Turkish flags and placards reading 'Freedom for Imamoglu' as they take part in a demonstration against the detention of the mayor of Istanbul in May 2025 (Yasin Akgul/AFP) Imamoglu's arrest has galvanised a wide cross-section of Turkish society who saw it as perhaps the final nail in the coffin of an already fragile democracy, with the imprisonment of a man polls have suggested could unseat Erdogan in a future election. But while the CHP and erstwhile allies like the Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP) flocked to the mass street demonstrations that have regularly taken place since Imamoglu's arrest, some saw the DEM Party's response as rather more muted. 'Leftist parties joined the initial rallies and marches with their party flags, whereas the DEM Party did not,' pointed out Ezgi Basaran, author and former editor of the centre-left Radikal newspaper. 'However, DEM politicians did not hesitate to condemn the arrest and expressed support for Imamoglu." The initial mobilisation in support of Imamoglu took place at the same time as Erdogan and members of the DEM Party were negotiating access to Ocalan, ahead of his epochal call for the PKK to disarm. This led to accusations from some pro-CHP voices - particularly those affiliated with the right of the party, such as news outlet Sozcu and Halk TV - that the DEM Party were collaborating with Erdogan and planning to support theoretical constitutional amendments that would allow him to run for another term. Kocyigit said there was absolutely "no truth" to the allegations that her party had made such a trade. "Today, the government may be approaching all these discussions with the intention of undermining its own political position to extract some political gain from it. We can't know for sure," she explained. "But we cannot reduce such a profound, historical and societal issue that has cost so much - 50,000 lives, billions of dollars in financial resources, potentially countless people displaced or exiled - to something as narrow as the re-election of President Erdogan. That's simply not possible." Tensions and splits Tensions in the parliamentary movement have occasionally flared up into splits and spats, such as in 2020 when acclaimed investigative journalist and MP Ahmet Sik publicly resigned from the party before joining the more explicitly leftist TIP, citing a lack of intra-party democracy and the influence of 'rigid and sectarian' factions in the party. Asena said that the DEM Party was now left at a crossroads - does it become 'a progressive, multi-ethnic force for democracy and social justice' or does it primarily become the voice of Turkey's Kurds, who are largely conservative, religious and had in past been viewed with suspicion by some secular, liberal Turks? 'The ongoing conflict has heavily influenced how both the state and opposition actors position themselves - as such a disarmament scenario would deeply affect party alignments and open space for a reconfiguration of political strategies,' he explained. 'When the democratic transformation begins, everything that is problematic today will change' - Devris Cimen, former HDP European spox Vahap Coskun, a law professor at Dicle University in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir, has in past been critical of the Kurdish movement's alliance with the Turkish left, arguing that they effectively allowed them outside influence through their piggybacking on the much bigger Kurdish cause. He told MEE that the dissolution of the PKK and the end to armed struggle could boost the DEM Party's position in Turkish politics - but it could also open the grounds for Kurdish politics to 'diversify.' 'This may put pressure on the DEM Party. Therefore, if the DEM Party can adapt to the post-arms era, it will grow, but if it cannot adapt, it will face the risk of shrinking,' he explained. The DEM Party and its predecessors have so far managed to virtually monopolise Kurdish politics in the southeast, vying with the AKP for Kurdish votes prior to the latter's decision to launch a military operation in the region in 2015. The only other specifically pro-Kurdish party with any profile in the southeast is Huda Par, an Islamist party with links to the armed Turkish Hezbollah organisation, whose politics could not be more different from DEM Party, apart from a mutual support for the Kurdish language and cultural representation. What is needed, said Devris Cimen, former European representative of the HDP, is a fundamental change in the nature of democracy in Turkey and an end to its nationalistic, exclusionary constitution, after which, everything else can and will change. 'The form of state administration will change, the parties will change, society will change, politics will change, the law will change, the political language will change, Turkey's foreign policy will change,' he said. 'If the Turkish state and Turkish society achieve the democratic transformation and change that Ocalan points to, they will also achieve prosperity and democracy. When the democratic transformation begins, everything that is problematic today will change.' A new era? Going forward, the prime goal of the DEM Party seems to be securing the eventual release of Ocalan. Watching the ongoing discussions, that would seem to be the natural direction of travel - but convincing the people of Turkey that a man commonly known in the press as a 'baby killer' might be an uphill struggle. 'This is not a demand for negotiations, but a necessary step for the peace and resolution process to move forward,' said Cimen. People hold a portrait of Selahattin Demirtas during a gathering of Turkish Kurds for Nowruz celebrations in March 2025 (AFP) 'Ocalan is the most important actor in this process, and his freedom and his ability to work freely are a fundamental condition.' Another goal could be the release of Demirtas and Yuksekdag, as well as the masses of prisoners languishing in jails for their alleged PKK links, hundreds of whom are thought by rights groups to be sick and in need of immediate release. Unlike Ocalan, repeated rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have declared that both Demirtas and Yuksekdag should be released. The Council of Europe already initiated infringement proceedings against Turkey in early 2022 for failing to implement ECHR rulings. Basaran said that, also unlike Ocalan, Erdogan harbours personal animosity towards Demirtas, who was able to take the AKP's parliamentary majority from it for the first time in 2015. The election of that year took place during the previous peace process, which was to collapse just months after the vote before a coalition could be formed. As PKK disarms, Turkey solidifies its power against Iran and Israel Read More » 'During the 2013–2015 peace process, Demirtas' famous speech where he repeated the slogan 'We will not make you president' directed at Erdogan is said to have triggered this animosity and contributed to Erdogan's disillusionment with the peace process, particularly as it bolstered the Kurdish party's standing rather than delivering votes to the AKP,' said Basaran. 'It is politics that keeps him imprisoned - more precisely, he is considered a formidable politician, a disruptor to Erdogan, and is thus kept out of public view. In that sense, both Ekrem Imamoglu and Selahattin Demirtas are victims of their own brilliance.' Kocyigit and her colleagues have all these issues and others to deal with in their ongoing meetings with political leaders. Compared to previous attempts at negotiating an end to the Kurdish conflict, there appears to be relatively little vocal opposition. The MHP - who supported the shuttering of the DEM Party's predecessor party - agreed on Tuesday to the establishment of fully authorised commission within the parliament to oversee the process. But a range of issues will remain contentious, not least discussions over the constitution and democratic reform. 'We are now talking about a democratic resolution to the Kurdish issue, and about peace," said Kocyigit. 'Certainly, we are entering a new era. Our main focus as of today is to resolve the Kurdish issue in a truly permanent way and establish sustainable peace in these lands.'
