[R-G] Kurdish Iranian Separatists Spark Tensions in the Border Regions

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=20434&lang=en>
Year: 2007

Kurdish Iranian separatists spark tensions in the border regions

Baghdad, 1 September - According to informations from the interior
minister of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, Othman Haji
Mahmoud, some 450 people from 20 villages bordering with Iran in the
north-east have been displaced by retaliatory shelling from the
Iranian armed forces. In recent weeks Iran has often complained
against cross-border attacks and armed incursions staged by members of
the Free Life Party (PEJAK), the Iranian-Kurdish equivalent to the
Turkish-Kurdish PKK. According to Iranian sources, the PEJAK has
reinforced its military camps in the northeastern region of Iraq, from
where it launches destabilizing operations on Iranian territory,
attacking Iranian police and military posts. Since mid-August Iranian
forces have begun to retaliate in an effort to hit the PEJAK camps on
Iraqi territory, from which the incursions are staged. Since then,
relations between Iran and Iraq have come under strain: Iraqi foreign
minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Kurdish nationalist, warned that
Iranian retaliatory strikes could have "negative effects" on the
relations between Iran and the current Iraqi government, which,
although it admits to be aware of PEJAK's incursions into Iranian
territory, rejects any responsibility towards Iran.

--
Yoshie