Government of Kurdistan Region of Iraq Relocates Armed Iranian Kurdish Militants

On March 19, 2023, the governments of Iran and Iraq signed a treaty under the terms of which Iraq pledged not to allow militant groups to use its territory in the Iraqi Kurdistan region to launch cross-border attacks after September 19, 2023. On September 5, nearly a year after the passing of the deadline, the Iraqi government appeared to have relocated the militants away from the Iran-Iraq border. It remains to be seen if the relocation will be permanent or if Iranian Kurdish militants in Iraq will change locations in response to the state of relations between Tehran and the government of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.    

• September 7: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps mouthpiece Mashregh News reported on the relocation of armed Iranian Kurdish militias away from the Iran-Iraq border:  
  • “Six months after the Revolutionary Guard’s combined missile and aerial drone attack against the headquarters of militant Iranian Kurdish parties in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Tehran and Baghdad signed a security agreement in March 2023 to disarm the militants … According to this agreement, the Iraqi government was committed to disarm and shut down military camps of Iranian Kurdish political parties that constitute a security threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran by September 19, 2023 … Last Thursday military camps of three militant political parties in Sulaymaniyah were finally shut down … All Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan fighters and their family members … evacuated their camps … and surrendered their heavy weapons to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party.” 
  • “After the victory of the revolution, Iran’s enemies, in particular Israel, the United States, and Britain, extended support and guided oppositional groups and parties in the name of supporting ethnicities and sects, but in reality, in order to deal blows to the Iranian nation … Relocation of the parties has checkmated them all.”   

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