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Tehran: Baghdad Has Until September to Disarm Kurdish Opposition Parties

Bagheri speaks to the Iranian state television in Mashhad on Tuesday (Iranian TV)
Bagheri speaks to the Iranian state television in Mashhad on Tuesday (Iranian TV)
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Tehran: Baghdad Has Until September to Disarm Kurdish Opposition Parties

Bagheri speaks to the Iranian state television in Mashhad on Tuesday (Iranian TV)
Bagheri speaks to the Iranian state television in Mashhad on Tuesday (Iranian TV)

Chief of Staff of Iran’s armed forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri said on Tuesday that the Iraqi government has until September to disarm Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region, threatening to use military action if Baghdad fails to meet the deadline.

“If the deadline passes and they remain armed or carry out any operation, our operations against those groups will definitely reoccur more severely,” Bagheri told the state television. “Armed secessionist groups exist in northern Iraq, which causes insecurity at our borders.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Mehr news agency said Bagheri blamed some neighboring countries for failing to “favorably” fulfill their commitments to ensuring border security.

Speaking at an annual conference attended by ground force commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the northeastern city of Mashhad, he said a number of armed separatist groups in northern Iraq have caused some insecurities along the common border with Iran.

Bagheri said that Tehran had suspended cross-border strikes after Baghdad agreed to a September deadline to disarm the Kurdish opposition groups and secure the border regions.

Iran accuses Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region of fueling the nationwide protest movement in Iran last September and inciting unrest in the country.

In March, the Iraqi and Iranian governments signed a border protection deal in Baghdad, that includes coordination in protecting the common borders in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

In May, IRGC sent heavy weapons and additional personnel to the border, while sources said they are preparing to launch artillery into Iraqi Kurdistan.

Following the announcement, Iraqi National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji rushed to Tehran, where he met with Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

The two sides discussed the security agreement signed between both countries.

The Supreme National Security Council of Iran has handled sensitive files related to some neighboring countries, including the Iraq file, since 2003.

The Council is the highest security apparatus in the country, and its decisions are approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

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Austrian Conservatives Hold Crisis Meeting after Chancellor Quits

Austrian politician Markus Wallner (C), Governor of Vorarlberg, speaks to the media outside the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) meeting in Vienna, Austria, 05 January 2025. (EPA)
Austrian politician Markus Wallner (C), Governor of Vorarlberg, speaks to the media outside the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) meeting in Vienna, Austria, 05 January 2025. (EPA)
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Austrian Conservatives Hold Crisis Meeting after Chancellor Quits

Austrian politician Markus Wallner (C), Governor of Vorarlberg, speaks to the media outside the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) meeting in Vienna, Austria, 05 January 2025. (EPA)
Austrian politician Markus Wallner (C), Governor of Vorarlberg, speaks to the media outside the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) meeting in Vienna, Austria, 05 January 2025. (EPA)

The leadership of Austria's ruling conservatives held a crisis meeting on Sunday to pick a successor to Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who announced his resignation on Saturday as attempts to form a coalition government without the far right fell apart.

The surprise collapse of three- and then two-party talks aimed at cobbling together a centrist coalition that could serve as a bulwark against the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after the FPO came first in September's parliamentary election leaves President Alexander Van der Bellen with few options.

A snap election with support for the euroskeptic, Russia-friendly FPO still growing or an about-face in which Van der Bellen tasks FPO leader Herbert Kickl with forming a government are now the most likely options, with only limited scope for alternatives or playing for time.

"It is not an easy situation," Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, the westernmost of Austria's nine provinces, told reporters before the People's Party (OVP) leadership meeting at the chancellor's office.

"I believe we must do everything we can now to avoid sliding towards a national crisis."

Wallner said he opposed a snap election since that would delay the arrival of a new government by months. OVP governors are part of the leadership.

Nehammer insisted during and after the election campaign that his party would not govern with Kickl because he was too much of a conspiracy theorist and posed a security risk while at the same time saying much of Kickl's party was trustworthy.

Nehammer's departure makes it likely that whoever succeeds him will be more open to a coalition with the FPO, which is formally allied with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party.

GROWING SUPPORT FOR FPO

The FPO won September's election with around 29% of the vote, and opinion polls suggest its support has only grown since then, extending its lead over the OVP and Social Democrats to more than 10 percentage points while their support has shrunk.

The OVP and FPO overlap on various issues, particularly taking a tough line on immigration, to the point that the FPO has accused the OVP of stealing its ideas.

The two governed together from late 2017 until 2019, when a video-sting scandal involving the then-leader of the FPO prompted their coalition's collapse. At the state level, they govern together in five of nine states, including in OVP moderate Wallner's Vorarlberg.

The national dynamic is now different because if they were to form an alliance the OVP would for the first time be junior partner to the FPO, making the position of OVP leader difficult and undesirable to many.

After initial media reports that household names like former party leader Sebastian Kurz, who led the last coalition with the FPO and has since been convicted of perjury, could become OVP leader, Austrian media reported overnight that they were no longer in the running.

That left lesser-known figures such as new Chamber of Commerce Secretary-General Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, 45.

Meanwhile, the FPO hammered home its message.

"Austria needs a Chancellor Kickl now," it said on X.