The Labor Party remains in Iraq at the request of Tehran against the SDF and America

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[size=52]The Labor Party remains in Iraq at the request of Tehran against the SDF and America[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad/ Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]Iranian threats to invade northern Iraq to pursue opposition parties there have almost ended after Baghdad announced the removal of those groups from the border in light of the recent agreement with Tehran. But why is this experience not extended to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which opposes Turkey, to end with it the continuous bombing and ground operations?[/size]
[size=45]In the most recent attack attributed by Baghdad to Ankara, which killed 3 members and wounded 3 others from the Counter-Terrorism Service in Kurdistan, it was carried out with a drone on Arbat Airport, an agricultural airport in Sulaymaniyah used for private aircraft to spray agricultural pesticides.[/size]
[size=45]This incident took place the day after Baghdad announced the implementation of the joint security agreement (between Iraq and Iran) and the final evacuation of the Iranian opposition headquarters located near the border between the two countries.[/size]
[size=45]Last year, Tehran bombed more than once the sites of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, accusing them of participating in the protest movement that shook Iran following the death of Iranian Kurdish Mahsa Amini in 2022, after she was arrested by the morality police.[/size]
[size=45]In an interview with (Al-Mada), sources close to the coordination framework said, “The Iranian opposition near the border was causing concern in Tehran, unlike the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which the Islamic Republic is using as a pressure card against the United States and the SDF forces in Syria, which are supported by Washington.”[/size]
[size=45]The story of the Turkish and Iranian opposition parties goes back to the 1980s, when these groups took refuge in Iraq.[/size]
[size=45]But in 1992, according to Kurdish officials, the Iranian parties pledged to the Kurdistan government to stay away from the border and did not carry out any military operations, unlike the Workers’ Party.[/size]
[size=45]When the recent protests broke out in Iran, according to the same officials, these opposition parties did not intervene in the scene and remained neutral.[/size]
[size=45]Following the broader attack launched by Iran last year, on the headquarters of those parties in Kurdistan, Tehran threatened a ground invasion unless Baghdad carried out operations to disarm the opposition.[/size]
[size=45]According to what Kurdish officials say, most of these parties do not have armed factions, and their whereabouts are subject to UN monitoring as they are refugees.[/size]
[size=45]But officials talk about a single role played by a group known as “PJAK,” which Tehran says numbers between 1,000 and 1,200 between Syria and Iraq, and is accused of carrying out attacks inside the Islamic Republic.[/size]
[size=45]It is believed that this faction, according to Kurdish information, has cooperation with Tehran, as it carries out attacks inside Iran to give the latter a justification to attack Kurdistan.[/size]
[size=45]In the end, the Islamic Republic gave Iraq until mid-September to disarm those groups before they repeat the attacks, “severely” this time, according to an Iranian military statement.[/size]
[size=45]With Baghdad announcing the transfer of these groups to areas far from the border, without revealing their headquarters, it is expected that this group will meet the fate of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, the last group of which left Iraq in 2016 for Albania.[/size]
[size=45]The coordination framework was silent during the crisis with the Iranian opposition parties until last year, as a result of the bombing carried out by the Islamic Republic and popular pressure, it was forced to agree to hold a session in Parliament to discuss the Iranian attacks for the first time after 2003.[/size]
[size=45]Then the goal of the session was reduced to “violations by Iran and Turkey,” then to a new name for the session “preserving sovereignty,” and it eventually turned into a secret session.[/size]
[size=45]In the closed session, the “Kuwaiti violations” paragraph was added to the list of previous countries, according to what was leaked at the time from behind the scenes of the session, which ended with general discussions.[/size]
[size=45]At that time, Ismail Qaani, commander of the Iranian Quds Force, was in Baghdad. It is a strange coincidence that the commander of the Quds Force was present again a few days ago with Baghdad announcing the implementation of the security agreement with Tehran.[/size]
[size=45]At that time, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry condemned Iran’s bombing of Kurdistan with missiles, while Tehran described the attack as being against “terrorist separatist groups.”[/size]
[size=45]On the other hand, the issue of Turkey's prosecution of the Kurdistan Workers' Party entered into two major changes, the first in 2015, when Iraq was beginning its first military campaigns against ISIS.[/size]
[size=45]In that year, a Turkish camp was discovered near Bashiqa. It was assumed to be for Turkish trainers for local forces there, but what was strange was that it was reinforced with armor.[/size]
[size=45]Now Turkey has 7,000 soldiers and officers who penetrate 100 km deep into Iraqi territory and have 11 military bases and 19 camps.[/size]
[size=45]The second variable is the PKK’s descent from Mount Qandil in Kurdistan in 2019 to administer the city of Sinjar, north of Mosul.[/size]
[size=45]So far, Iraqi forces are not present in the city, but rather on the outskirts, and two types of groups control Sinjar, one affiliated with the Workers’ Party and the second close to the PMF.[/size]
[size=45]The source close to the coordination framework confirms that “the Labor Party is a partner of some factions, so the experience of excluding the Iranian opposition cannot be replicated on the Turkish opposition.”[/size]
[size=45]Regarding the “Frame” positions towards its audience regarding the repeated Turkish attacks, the source indicates that the Shiite alliance “will continue to denounce and deplore until a new international change occurs.”[/size]
[size=45]The coordination framework awaits Iran and the United States reaching an agreement, and then Baghdad will obtain new pressure cards with which it may confront Ankara.[/size]
[size=45]The leaders of the coordination framework criticized the recent Turkish attack on Arbat Airport, while the government’s military spokesman, Yahya Rasoul, said, “These repeated attacks are not in line with the principle of good neighborly relations.”[/size]
[size=45]The United Nations mission in Iraq also condemned the attack, considering that “security concerns must be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy, not through strikes.”[/size]
[size=45]In turn, researcher and observer of political affairs, Wael Al-Rikabi, says, “Any Iranian, Turkish, or any other countries’ interference, whether military or political, in Iraq is rejected.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Rikabi, a member of the National Media Observatory, added in an interview with Al-Mada: “The Turkish opposition groups must be disarmed, as happened with the Iranian parties.”[/size]
[size=45]He stated, “The Constitution does not allow Iraq to be a launching pad for aggression against its neighbors, nor for the action of armed military groups.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Rikabi called on Baghdad to possess pressure tools, such as the economic paper, to negotiate with Ankara to resolve the issue of the Workers’ Party and the water file.[/size]
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