Iranian Kurdish opposition in Iraq ready to confront regime, but says not yet, as Trump backs down from threats

In the mountains of northern Iraq, just 30 miles from the Iranian border, News themezone met Thursday morning with fighters (many of them women) from an armed Iranian Kurdish opposition group who say they are prepared to confront and help overthrow the Islamic Republic’s hardline clerical rulers.

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) is banned as a terrorist group inside. Iran and living in exile on the other side of the border in Iraq. For years he has trained for the day when the Iranian regime could be toppled from power. But as President Trump appears to backtrack on threats of U.S. military intervention on behalf of Iranian protesters, the leader of the Kurdish group told News themezone that the time has not yet come.

President Trump said Wednesday that he had heard on “good authority” that “the killings in Iran are ceasing” and that “there were no plans for executions” in the country. after a brutal repression to end two weeks of widespread protests. Sources inside Iran have told News themezone of the crackdown by Iranian authorities. may have killed more than 12,000 peopleand possibly many more.

His comments appeared to signal a step back after repeated warnings of unspecified U.S. intervention to protect protesters, and then a threat on Tuesday. order “very strong actions” yes they will go hanged protesters.

That may not have been the signal from Washington that PDKI forces training across the border in Iraq were hoping for.

Commander Sayran Gargoli told News themezone that the protests had given them hope that the oppressive regime that came to power with the 1979 Islamic Revolution could finally be overthrown, but only “if the people demonstrating in the streets receive international help.”

PDKI leader Mustafa Hijri has lived in exile for more than four decades and has watched as Iran’s rulers quell several rounds of major unrest. As the latest protests appear to suffer the same fate, he said he could not say with certainty whether this uprising could prove pivotal.

“It depends on whether the widespread killing will continue or not. If it continues, surely the protesters will not be able to continue. On the other hand, there are other possible scenarios, such as the United States entering into negotiations with the mullahs’ regime and forcing them to accept its conditions. In this case, the regime will manage to prolong its existence for some time.”

He said he expected US intervention and, specifically, strikes against Iran that “strike the centers of the repressive forces that shoot people in the streets, and their so-called ‘justice’ institutions that serve the government. We want those institutions gone.”

“The majority of people in Iran are dissatisfied with this regime and oppose it,” Hijri said.

But in the absence of that outside help, Hijri told News themezone that sending PDKI forces across the border (and calling into action the thousands of forces he says the group has lurking inside the country) could backfire dramatically.

“I think at this point it is not in the protesters’ best interest for the armed forces to return to the country, because it becomes a convenient excuse for the regime to kill people,” he said. “That’s why the time has not come to make that decision. But when the day comes and we come to the conclusion that the return of our peshmerga [Kurdish] “The armed forces will not become an additional reason to suppress protesters, then we could do it.”

Hijri said the PDKI wants Kurds, who make up about 10% of Iran’s population, and other ethnic minorities to be allowed to live “under democratic law, and for their children to be allowed to learn in their own languages, and for the government to officially recognize” their right to do so.

Opposition fighters, Hijri said, “have been trained and are there, ready when the party needs them.”

But as Iran’s hardline leaders increasingly appear to have survived another major challenge to their grip on power, at least for now, the PKDI, and millions of Iranians still inside the country, can only continue to wait.