Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein stated on Tuesday that Baghdad has not armed Iranian opposition groups present on Iraqi soil, reaffirming the government's rejection of US and Israeli military operations against Iran.
Speaking in an interview with Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath television, Hussein said that mutual strikes on Iraqi territory —conducted by both Iran and the United States— have effectively drawn Iraq into the war without a formal government decision to that effect. He attributed the escalation to weak internal control over armed factions, noting that Iraq's armed groups do not hold the authority to declare war or peace on behalf of the state.
Hussein denied the existence of any armed activity by Iranian opposition groups operating from Iraqi soil, stating that these factions are present in camps in a refugee capacity. The Iranian Kurdish opposition groups —exile parties including the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, the Komala Party, and the Kurdistan Freedom Party— have maintained camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for decades.
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Tehran has long accused these groups of crossing the border to attack its forces or of inciting unrest in its Kurdish-populated areas.
Qubad Talabani, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), confirmed in an interview with Agence France-Presse last week that the Kurdish authorities had seen no effort by any US body to arm Iranian opposition groups in Kurdistan, adding that discussions held with the United States, Iran, and local groups had made clear that there was currently no plan to deploy these factions inside Iran. Talabani also stated that the KRG had communicated to all opposition groups that it would not permit them to serve as a frontline force, and that this position had been conveyed to all parties involved.
In 2023, Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region and Iran, signed a security agreement to secure shared borders and curtail the armed activity of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups operating from Iraqi territory. The deal has come under strain following repeated strikes on Iranian Kurdish opposition camps in the Region. At the start of the current conflict on Feb.25, Talabani said Tehran had asked Iraqi Kurdistan to do what it could to protect the shared border, a request "the KRG intended to honor out of respect for bilateral relations."