Iran says Iraq agreed to expel Kurdish opposition groups — The National

Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Mohammad Al-Sadegh, said Iraq had agreed to expel Iranian Kurdish opposition groups from Iraqi Kurdistan or hand them over to Tehran. The diplomat made the statement after a meeting of the Iran-Iraq Joint Security Committee held on October 19 in Baghdad, The National reports.

Statement by the Iranian ambassador

In a post on X, Al-Sadegh said the sides had agreed to “remove elements of Iranian separatist terrorist groups from Iraq’s Kurdistan Region or hand them over to Iran.” The Iraqi delegation at the talks was led by National Security Adviser Qasim Al-Abboudi; representatives of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region also attended the meeting.

Iraq’s official statement on the meeting did not mention a possible expulsion or transfer of members of these groups. It said the sides discussed the implementation of the bilateral security agreement, unresolved issues and appropriate ways to resolve them. Iraqi authorities, the Kurdistan Region administration and Qasim Al-Abboudi did not immediately comment on the Iranian ambassador’s statement.

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The 2023 security agreement

In March 2023, Baghdad and Tehran concluded a security agreement. Under its terms, Iraq committed to disarm Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, relocate them farther from the border with Iran and prevent Iraqi territory from being used for attacks on the neighboring state.

These included the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, Komala, the Kurdistan Free Life Party and the Kurdistan Freedom Party. They were to surrender heavy weapons and move to camps located farther from the border. Iraqi officials had previously said that families would be relocated to five designated camps in the Kurdistan Region, while the UN Refugee Agency would consider asylum applications.

Tehran accuses these organizations of terrorism and inciting unrest. Some of the groups have been based in northern Iraq since the 1980s and seek broader rights for Iran’s Kurdish minority. Baghdad said it had relocated fighters from border areas and closed certain headquarters, but Iran has repeatedly called these measures insufficient and carried out drone and missile strikes on opposition camps in the Erbil and Sulaymaniyah provinces.