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Exclusive - Kurdish Opposition Party Says Politics, Arms Needed in Dealing with Tehran

Exclusive - Kurdish Opposition Party Says Politics, Arms Needed in Dealing with Tehran
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Exclusive - Kurdish Opposition Party Says Politics, Arms Needed in Dealing with Tehran

Exclusive - Kurdish Opposition Party Says Politics, Arms Needed in Dealing with Tehran

Since the formation of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region government in 1992, two anti-Iran parties, the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), decided to suspend their armed activities against Iranian forces. They took the decision to respect the political situation in the Kurdish region and avoid giving Tehran the excuses to expand into the area.

In return, ruling parties in Kurdistan continued to provide financial support to the two anti-Iran opposition Kurdish parties.

Komala has posts based in mountainous terrain north of Sulaymaniyah, and the KDPI is based in the city of Koy Sanjaq, Erbil Governorate.

Over time, divisions led the KDPI to split into the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, led by Mustafa Hijri, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), led by Mostafa Mouloudi. Komala, meanwhile, split into three branches.

These parties stayed away from arms for 15 years, up until two years ago when the KPDI resumed its armed operations deep inside Iran. It has over the years dealt heavy blows to positions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that are deployed heavily in the Kurdish regions in Iran. The Iranian regime retaliates by assassinating KDPI leaders and fighters inside the Kurdistan region.

Komala, until this very day, maintains a military silence, despite having a significant number of trained and armed fighters with medium and light weapons at their disposal.

Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran (KMMK) official and Komala offshoot leader Omar Alikhanzadeh said that his party resumed armed activity against Iran from 2009 until late 2013, but found it “futile and useless when compared to political and civil action.”

“We are now adopting a large-scale political project aimed at mobilizing masses politically and offering wider prospects for anti-Iranian political action,” Alikhanzadeh told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Working to form an entity which has both military and political wings operating inside Iranian territory, Alikhanzadeh said that the Komala plans further training and rehabilitation of military forces in border areas.

Despite using charged rhetoric, Alikhanzadeh said that the time for direct confrontation with the Iranian regime has not yet come.

He elaborated further by saying that Komala-linked fighters lack an elemental strategic depth, proper logistics, and financial support.

Over more, he said that Kurdish opposition members have also suffered pressure practiced by the Iraqi Kurdistan government, which has cut off all funding to opposition parties.

Speaking on toppling the Iranian regime, the official said it has to be a public choice taken and carried out by Iranians with no external drivers.

“The collapse of the Iranian is inevitable. The Iranian public disagrees with the regime structure, especially over its blatant involvement in spurring regional chaos, instead of focusing on internal affairs, such as the deteriorating living standards.”

Summing up recent riots in Iran, Alikhanzadeh said that the regime’s shortcoming has instigated an unprecedented wave of rejection and discontent against the rulers of Tehran.

As for the prospects of rapprochement between conflicting Komala offshoots Alikhanzadeh said that there is hope.

“We recently formed a center for joint cooperation between all the opposing Kurdish forces and parties. We outlined joint efforts, especially on working together to topple the current Tehran regime and replace it with a democratic alternative instead.”

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Interviews

Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
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Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich has told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US does not plan to withdraw its forces from Syria.

The US is committed to “the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with,” he said.

Here is the full text of the interview.

Question: Mr. Goldrich, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us today. I know you are leaving your post soon. How do you assess the accomplishments and challenges remaining?

Answer: Thank you very much for the chance to talk with you today. I've been in this position for three years, and so at the end of three years, I can see that there's a lot that we accomplished and a lot that we have left to do. But at the beginning of a time I was here, we had just completed a review of our Syria policy, and we saw that we needed to focus on reducing suffering for the people in Syria. We needed to reduce violence. We needed to hold the regime accountable for things that are done and most importantly, from the US perspective, we needed to keep ISIS from reemerging as a threat to our country and to other countries. At the same time, we also realized that there wouldn't be a solution to the crisis until there was a political process under resolution 2254, so in each of these areas, we've seen both progress and challenges, but of course, on ISIS, we have prevented the reemergence of the threat from northeast Syria, and we've helped deal with people that needed to be repatriated out of the prisons, and we dealt with displaced people in al-Hol to reduce the numbers there. We helped provide for stabilization in those parts of Syria.

Question: I want to talk a little bit about the ISIS situation now that the US troops are still there, do you envision a timeline where they will be withdrawn? Because there were some reports in the press that there is a plan from the Biden administration to withdraw.

Answer: Yeah. So right now, our focus is on the mission that we have there to keep ISIS from reemerging. So I know there have been reports, but I want to make clear that we remain committed to the role that we play in that part of Syria, to the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with, and to the need to prevent that threat from reemerging.

Question: So you can assure people who are saying that you might withdraw, that you are remaining for the time being?

Answer: Yes, and that we remain committed to this mission which needs to continue to be pursued.

Question: You also mentioned the importance of humanitarian aid. The US has been leading on this. Are you satisfied with where you are today on the humanitarian front in Syria?

Answer: We remain committed to the role that we play to provide for humanitarian assistance in Syria. Of the money that was pledged in Brussels, we pledged $593 million just this past spring, and we overall, since the beginning of the conflict, have provided $18 billion both to help the Syrians who are inside of Syria and to help the refugees who are in surrounding countries. And so we remain committed to providing that assistance, and we remain keenly aware that 90% of Syrians are living in poverty right now, and that there's been suffering there. We're doing everything we can to reduce the suffering, but I think where we would really like to be is where there's a larger solution to the whole crisis, so Syrian people someday will be able to provide again for themselves and not need this assistance.

Question: And that's a perfect key to my next question. Solution in Syria. you are aware that the countries in the region are opening up to Assad again, and you also have the EU signaling overture to the Syrian regime and Assad. How do you deal with that?

Answer: For the United States, our policy continues to be that we will not normalize with the regime in Syria until there's been authentic and enduring progress on the goals of resolution 2254, until the human rights of the Syrian people are respected and until they have the civil and human rights that they deserve. We know other countries have engaged with the regime. When those engagements happen, we don't support them, but we remind the countries that are engaged that they should be using their engagements to push forward on the shared international goals under 2254, and that whatever it is that they're doing should be for the sake of improving the situation of the Syrian people.

Question: Let's say that all of the countries decided to talk to Assad, aren’t you worried that the US will be alienated in the process?

Answer: The US will remain true to our own principles and our own policies and our own laws, and the path for the regime in Syria to change its relationship with us is very clear, if they change the behaviors that led to the laws that we have and to the policies that we have, if those behaviors change and the circumstances inside of Syria change, then it's possible to have a different kind of relationship, but that's where it has to start.

Question: My last question to you before you leave, if you have to pick one thing that you need to do in Syria today, what is it that you would like to see happening today?

Answer: So there are a number of things, I think that will always be left and that there are things that we will try to do, to try to make them happen. We want to hold people accountable in Syria for things that have happened. So even today, we observed something called the International Day for victims of enforced disappearances, there are people that are missing, and we're trying to draw attention to the need to account for the missing people. So our step today was to sanction a number of officials who were responsible for enforced disappearances, but we also created something called the independent institution for missing persons, and that helps the families, in the non-political way, get information on what's happened. So I'd like to see some peace for the families of the missing people. I'd like to see the beginning of a political process, there hasn't been a meeting of the constitutional committee in two years, and I think that's because the regime has not been cooperating in political process steps. So we need to change that situation. And I would, of course, like it's important to see the continuation of the things that we were talking about, so keeping ISIS from reemerging and maintaining assistance as necessary in the humanitarian sphere. So all these things, some of them are ongoing, and some of them remain to be achieved. But the Syrian people deserve all aspects of our policy to be fulfilled and for them to be able to return to a normal life.