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France Calls on Iran to Release Jailed Researcher

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a meeting with representatives of families of repatriates from Algeria after the country's independence war with its colonial power at the Elysee palace in Paris, Wednesday Jan. 26, 2022. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a meeting with representatives of families of repatriates from Algeria after the country's independence war with its colonial power at the Elysee palace in Paris, Wednesday Jan. 26, 2022. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)
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France Calls on Iran to Release Jailed Researcher

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a meeting with representatives of families of repatriates from Algeria after the country's independence war with its colonial power at the Elysee palace in Paris, Wednesday Jan. 26, 2022. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a meeting with representatives of families of repatriates from Algeria after the country's independence war with its colonial power at the Elysee palace in Paris, Wednesday Jan. 26, 2022. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron called for the “immediate release” of a French-Iranian researcher imprisoned in Iran, officials said Sunday.

Macron made the plea in a “long” phone call on Saturday with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to a statement from the French presidency.

Fariba Adelkhah, a 62-year-old anthropologist, has been detained in Iran since June 2019. She had been under house arrest since October 2020, but was sent back to prison earlier this month, The Associated Press said.

Adelkhah was given a five-year sentence for “gathering and collusion” against Iran’s security. French authorities said her conviction is “purely political and arbitrary.”

Macron also expressed his “concerns” over the situation of another French national detained in Iran who is on a hunger strike to protest his treatment, according to the French presidency's statement.

Benjamin Brière, 36 has been sentenced to eight years in prison on what his lawyer said are trumped up espionage and propaganda charges.

Brière was arrested in May 2020 after taking pictures in a desert area where photography is prohibited and asking questions on social media about Iran’s obligatory headscarf for women.

France and other world powers are in negotiations with Iran in Vienna to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

Macron “insisted on the need to speed up (negotiations) to quickly get tangible progress,” the statement said.

Rights groups accuse hard-liners in Iran’s security agencies of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West. Tehran denies it, but there have been prisoner exchanges in the past.

In March 2020, Iran and France swapped French researcher Roland Marchal for Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad.

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Türkiye Presses PKK to Disarm ‘Immediately’

An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
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Türkiye Presses PKK to Disarm ‘Immediately’

An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)

Türkiye on Thursday insisted the PKK and all groups allied with it must disarm and disband "immediately", a week after a historic call by the Kurdish militant group's jailed founder.

"The PKK and all groups affiliated with it must end all terrorist activities, dissolve and immediately and unconditionally lay down their weapons," a Turkish defense ministry source said.

The remarks made clear the demand referred to all manifestations of Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, costing tens of thousands of lives.

Although the insurgency targeted Türkiye, the PKK's leadership is based in the mountains of northern Iraq and its fighters are also part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key force in northeastern Syria.

Last week, Ocalan made a historic call urging the PKK to dissolve and his fighters to disarm, with the group on Saturday accepting his call and declaring a ceasefire.

The same day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that if the promises were not kept, Turkish forces would continue their anti-PKK operations.

"If the promises given are not kept and an attempt is made to delay... or deceive... we will continue our ongoing operations... until we eliminate the last terrorist," he said.

- Resonance in Syria, Iraq -

Since 2016, Türkiye has carried out three major military operations in northern Syria targeting PKK militants, which it sees as a strategic threat along its southern border.

Ankara has made clear it wants to see all PKK fighters disarmed wherever they are -- notably those in the US-backed SDF, which it sees as part of the PKK.

The SDF -- the bulk of which is made up of the Kurdish YPG -- spearheaded the fight that ousted ISIS extremists from Syria in 2019, and is seen by much of the West as crucial to preventing an extremist resurgence.

Last week, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi welcomed Ocalan's call for the PKK to lay down its weapons but said it "does not concern our forces" in northeastern Syria.

But Türkiye disagrees.

Since the toppling of Syria's Bashar al-Assad in December, Ankara has threatened military action unless YPG militants are expelled, deeming them to be a regional security problem.

"Our fundamental approach is that all terrorist organizations should disarm and be dissolved in Iraq and Syria, whether they are called the PKK, the YPG or the SDF," Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan's ruling AKP, said on Monday.

Ocalan's call also affects Iraq, with the PKK leadership holed up in the mountainous north where Turkish forces have staged multiple air strikes in recent years.

Turkish forces have also established numerous bases there, souring Ankara's relationship with Baghdad.

"We don't want either the PKK or the Turkish army on our land... Iraq wants everyone to withdraw," Iraq's national security adviser Qassem al-Araji told AFP.

"Turkish forces are (in Iraq) because of the PKK's presence," he said, while pointing out that Türkiye had "said more than once that it has no territorial ambitions in Iraq".