Shafaq News- Erbil

Leaders of two Iranian Kurdish opposition parties have rejected talk of moving their groups out of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, describing proposals to confine them to camps elsewhere in Iraq as partly a product of Iranian "psychological warfare."

Informed political sources told Shafaq News this week that Iraqi political forces are discussing a plan to relocate the groups to a center in another part of Iraq, with Samawah, in the southern province of Al-Muthanna, among the options. The proposal is still under study, and handing the groups' members over to Iran has been ruled out for now.

Propaganda, Not Proposals

The Kurdish struggle for national rights will not end in surrender or under pressure, Karim Parvizi, a leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), told Shafaq News. “It began before the Islamic Republic and will continue after it.”

Much of the talk about the parties' future, in Parvizi's view, is Iranian propaganda rather than the product of any official discussions with his party, which cannot take a position on proposals that have not been formally put to it.

Contacts and cooperation with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are continuing, he said, and the KRG has neither called for an end to Kurdish political activity nor barred the opposition parties from operating.

Parvizi denied that the KDPI has military camps, saying its members and their families live in civilian camps, some of which have been bombarded by Iran.

The party's political and diplomatic contacts with Washington are also ongoing, he added.

'We Are Not The MEK'

Hassan Rahman Pana, a member of the central committee of Komala, the Kurdistan branch of the Communist Party of Iran, warned of media and psychological campaigns targeting the parties, their families and refugees in the Kurdistan Region. He stressed that he was speaking in a personal capacity.

“Iranian authorities have waged a long campaign of assassinations and security and media pressure against the Kurdish opposition,” Rahman Pana said, estimating that 350 to 400 members, activists and leaders of Iranian Kurdish parties have been assassinated since the 1990s.

Iraq has previously denied any plan to move the parties, according to Rahman Pana, who said the proposals echo efforts by Iranian intelligence to weaken the opposition and sow anxiety in its ranks.

He rejected any move to close heavily guarded camps, saying the Iranian Kurdish parties are not the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the Iranian opposition group whose members were held in camps in Iraq for years. “They cannot be confined to isolated sites guarded by the Popular Mobilization Forces or groups linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards,” he said, warning that such a plan would strip them of the freedom of movement and social ties they need for political work, and that they would not accept it.

Cutting the parties off from Kurdish society in the region would be extremely difficult, he added, given decades of historical and social ties and the shelter Kurdish families there have given their members and fighters.

Rahmanpana also cautioned against relying too heavily on Washington, pointing out that the US policy is driven first by American interests and offers no lasting guarantees to Kurdish allies, despite the Peshmerga's sacrifices in the war against the Islamic State group.

Pressure From Tehran

The parties' presence in the Kurdistan Region has repeatedly strained relations between Baghdad and Tehran, particularly since the two countries signed a security agreement in March 2023 on border control and preventing Iraqi territory from being used for attacks on neighbors. In September 2023, Iraqi officials said the groups had been moved away from the border to locations deeper inside the Kurdistan Region, ahead of being treated as civilians, while Tehran said they had been placed in five camps. Iran has continued to demand their disarmament, and the issue was raised again by the two countries' joint high-level security committee in Baghdad in May 2026.

The parties' bases and camps in Erbil and Al-Sulaymaniyah provinces have come under repeated missile and drone attacks since the US-Iran war broke out on February 28, including sites belonging to the KDPI, Komala factions and the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK). Iran's Revolutionary Guards have claimed some of the strikes, which have killed and wounded people in camps housing members' families.

Neither the federal government nor the KRG has announced any decision on relocating the groups.

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