A nuclear deal would help Iran ‘fund proxy groups, repress its people,’ warns Iranian Kurdish leader Mustafa Hijri

KDPI leader Mustafa Hijri is in hiding following multiple assassination attempts and an Iranian strike in September that destroyed much of his party’s headquarters in Koya. (Supplied)
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Updated 02 November 2022
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A nuclear deal would help Iran ‘fund proxy groups, repress its people,’ warns Iranian Kurdish leader Mustafa Hijri

  • Ethno-sectarian minority groups must be united to overthrow the regime, Hijri tells Arab News in exclusive interview
  • He says peaceful protests would be more legitimate and the casualties lower for Iranian Kurds

MISSOURI, USA: Mustafa Hijri, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, is in hiding following multiple assassination attempts and a late-September volley of missiles and suicide drones that destroyed much of the KDPI’s headquarters in Koya in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The attacks killed at least 16 people, including several civilians. It was not the first nor likely the last Iranian strike on Iraqi Kurdistan territory aimed at the KDPI, the oldest and largest Iranian Kurdish opposition party.

In September 2018, a similar Iranian missile strike on the KDPI headquarters killed 17 people and injured another 49, including some of the party leadership. In July 1996, Iran even invaded Iraqi Kurdistan, sending some 3,000 troops to attack KDPI offices in Koya. 

Assassinations and car bombs remain the more common Iranian tactic. In 1989 and 1992, Iran assassinated two former KDPI leaders in Vienna and Berlin. Hijri is therefore correct to be concerned about his security, choosing to meet Arab News at a secret safehouse in the Middle East.

Most observers in the region believe the latest strikes constitute an attempt to divert popular attention away from Iran’s domestic troubles.

Unrest over the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of Iran’s morality police is still roiling the country. True to their usual script, authorities in Tehran have blamed the trouble on “foreign interference.”




A wounded Iranian Kurdish Peshmerga member of the Iranian Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDPI) walks inside their headquarters after a rocket attack in Koysinjaq. (AFP)

Hijri says the regime in Tehran would indeed like to provoke the KDPI into sending its forces into Iran, as it would help the ayatollahs justify this claim.

“The Iranian regime likes the idea of us sending the Peshmerga, as it gives more justification to the regime to intensify its repression and oppression of the people, and to tell the world that they have returned and fought us. But we have not done this because this does not benefit people,” Hijri said.

The protests in Iran have engulfed the entire country and have even crossed ethnic and sectarian lines — a first in the country since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.

“It is the policy of Iran, either inside Iran or outside Iran, to pit the nations against each other. They think if neighboring states and regional states, and people inside them, are united, their government will be deposed,” Hijri told Arab News.

“Look at Iraq, in which Iran has an influential role, it has created division within the Shiite house. Now the Shiite parties have disagreements. They held an election one year ago but (only) formed their government (on Oct. 27 this year). In Lebanon, it has created a division between Shiite and Sunni. Everywhere it is working on these divisions.”

The general consensus is that provoking divisions within a very diverse country like Iran has allowed the regime to divide and rule the various groups.

“You know that the nations (inside Iran), except for the ethnic Persians, including Baloch and Azeri and Turks, in reality, are all marginalized in this centralized system. The languages of these nations are prohibited in schools,” he told Arab News.

“A budget is not allocated to their regions and areas. There is a lot of administrative discrimination against them. The Iranian regime looks at them as the enemy. The Iranian regime thinks of them as if they want to divide the country. So the Iranian regime has impoverished them.”

These divisions evidently extend also to religion.

“A large portion of them (minority ethnic groups in Iran) are Sunni Muslims,” Hijri told Arab News. “The Iranian regime is antagonistic toward Sunni Islam. These denials and repression have made the people understand that we all have to be united and cooperative to overthrow the regime and free ourselves.




Videograb reportedly showing a missile launch from the Iranian Kurdistan (Komalah) region directed towards Sulaimaniyah in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region. (FARS/AFP)

“In Tabriz and Balochistan, they chant to support Kurdistan. In Zahedan, they chant to support Balochistan. It seems that cooperation has become stronger within them.” 

Making people believe that any uprising would lead to a Syrian-style civil war, with warring parties fractured along ethno-sectarian lines, would no doubt help the regime stave off a unified resistance.

If, on the other hand, Iran’s many ethno-sectarian groups (Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Balochs, Arabs, Turkmen, Shiites, Sunnis and others) remain united against the regime and believe they can overthrow the mullahs in a Tunisian-style revolution, the ongoing protests will pose a much greater threat to Iran’s theocracy.

This is one of the reasons Hijri and his KDPI are determined to maintain the nonviolent nature of the uprising.

“We think, as the Hawkary Committee of Coordination (which consists of three parties, the KDPI and the other two Komalas with which it has a coalition) and especially as the KDPI, that these protests should continue peacefully. Its political objectives would be more than that if Peshmerga became involved,” he told Arab News.

“Peaceful protests would be more legitimate for the world and the human casualties would be lower for Kurds if the Peshmerga do not go and get involved and start a war.”

Nevertheless, the young woman whose death at the hands of Iran’s morality police sparked the protests was Kurdish, and the Kurdish provinces of Iran have seen many of the most serious and widespread demonstrations.

“Zhina, a Saqizi girl, was arrested in Tehran on accusation of showing her hair and then killed,” Hijri told Arab News, referring to Mahsa Amini by her Kurdish name.

“From that time, the program began. After her body was buried in Saqiz, the Hawkary Committee asked the Kurdish people the day after to strike and not go to work and come to the streets and chant against the Iranian regime.

“All people accepted the request and came to the streets and chanted against the Iranian regime. This spread across Iran. In reality, I can say that this, if we name it a revolution or an uprising, has continued for more than a month, and originated from Kurdistan in Iran.”

With growing calls among the protesters for regime change, many are now asking what kind of system might replace the theocracy, and what could happen to those parts of Iran where ethnic Persians do not make up the majority.

“What we have believed from the start and what the majority of Kurds and other nations in Iran believe is to create a democratic, decentralized and secular Iran,” Hijri told Arab News. “We believe this government will make Iran a country for all the nations inside it, and nobody would be marginalized.




Unrest over the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of Iran’s morality police is still roiling the country. (AFP)

“Now, in addition to the Hawkary Coordination Committee, we have a coalition of around 13 political parties of other Iranian nations, including Arabs, Balochs and Azeris. We also have a coalition under the name of the Congress of Iranian Federal Nations. We all work on this program.

“There are some Persian personalities that accept these ideas for the future of Iran, but not all of them. This is a problem we have. This is an issue across several countries as they are ruled by one dominant nation.

“For example, in Turkey, Kurds have been denied their rights and have been prohibited to say they are Kurds. Turkey is better because of some democratic infrastructure. But for the Kurds, it is the same as others.”

The question now in many Western capitals is how the international community might support the aims of the protesters. Hijri feels the regime is beyond reform, which means the West needs to stop trying to get along with Iran. Indeed, efforts such as restoring the 2015 nuclear accord merely strengthen what many view as a fundamentally malign regime.

“I announced before and repeat it here that what Iran gains from a Western deal regarding its nuclear weapons will be spent on its terrorist groups and proxy groups in the region,” Hijri told Arab News.

“Iran would have an upper hand in conducting terrorist activities in Europe and the West. Also, the gains the Iran regime receives from this deal would be spent on purchasing military staff to repress the Iranian people.

“The gains would also go to religious institutions and Pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) forces. The majority of it goes into the pockets of Iranian government officials. People will not get anything.

“In the former deal before (former US President Donald) Trump withdrew from it, the same happened. So, in my opinion, the Western deal with Iran concerning its nuclear issue is an indirect help to Iran to continue its politics in the region and inside Iran against the people.”




A KDPI member sprays red paint at holes in a wall made by shrapnel from a rocket attack days earlier at the party's headquarters in Koysinjaq. (AFP)

For Hijri, the international community’s response ought to be more sanctions targeting the regime, further help for the Iranian people in bypassing the regime’s internet restrictions, moral support for the protests, and solidarity with opposition groups like his own.

The US government currently has a “no contact” directive in place concerning groups like the KDPI, which Hijri believes comes from the State Department’s fear of upsetting the regime in Tehran during the nuclear talks.

Above all, Hijri wants the world to understand that the Iranian people need and want regime change, and they want to do so themselves without foreign military intervention.

“The slogans that Iranian people chant now are to remove the Iranian Islamic Republic,” Hijri told Arab News.

“The Iranian people, after a long time of experiencing oppression and repression, have all come to realize that if they want to gain their rights, their first and only way is to remove the Iranian Islamic Republic that stands in the way of this.”


Syria denies ‘escalatory intentions’ towards Lebanon: media ministry

Updated 4 sec ago
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Syria denies ‘escalatory intentions’ towards Lebanon: media ministry

DUBAI: The Syrian government has denied reports that Damascus intends to take escalatory measures against Beirut over the case of Syrian prisoners in Lebanon, sources said on Friday.
A source from Syria’s Ministry of Information said the Syrian government considers the issue of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons a top priority, adding that it is committed to resolving it swiftly through official channels between the two countries.
Sources close to the Syrian government were previously quoted by a television channel saying Damascus was considering diplomatic and economic escalation against Beirut.
The source claimed Damascus was considering the escalation over what it described as Lebanon’s disregard to the fate of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons, which an unnamed official related to the Syrian information ministry also denied.
Syrian authorities have accused Lebanon of procrastination to repatriate about one third of more than 2,000 of its imprisoned nationals.
The fate of the Syrian prisoners has irritated Damascus given that Lebanon had announced in March that it was ready to repatriate them.


New page opened for Turkiye following PKK disarmament, Erdogan says

Updated 12 July 2025
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New page opened for Turkiye following PKK disarmament, Erdogan says

  • Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history, Erdogan said
  • Thirty PKK militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that a new page opened for Turkiye following the start of a weapons handover by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.
“As of yesterday, the scourge of terrorism has entered the process of ending. Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history. Today, the doors of a great, powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open,” Erdogan said.
Thirty PKK militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.


Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources

Updated 12 July 2025
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Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources

  • Delegations from both sides began discussions in Qatar last Sunday to try to agree on a temporary halt to the conflict
  • Israel’s refusal to withdraw all of its troops from Gaza was holding back progress on securing a deal

Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza are being held up by Israel’s proposals to keep troops in the territory, two Palestinian sources with knowledge of the discussions said on Saturday.

Delegations from both sides began discussions in Qatar last Sunday to try to agree on a temporary halt to the 21-month conflict sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Both Hamas and Israel have said that 10 living hostages who were taken that day and who are still in captivity would be released if an agreement for a 60-day ceasefire were reached.

But one well-informed Palestinian source said Israel’s refusal to withdraw all of its troops from Gaza was holding back progress on securing a deal.

“The negotiations in Doha are facing a setback and complex difficulties due to Israel’s insistence, as of Friday, on presenting a map of withdrawal, which is actually a map of redeployment and repositioning of the Israeli army rather than a genuine withdrawal,” the source said.

Hamas has said it wants the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, which is home to more than two million people.

The source said, however, that the Israeli delegation presented a map at the talks which proposed maintaining military forces in more than 40 percent of the Palestinian territory.

“Hamas’s delegation will not accept the Israeli maps... as they essentially legitimize the reoccupation of approximately half of the Gaza Strip and turn Gaza into isolated zones with no crossings or freedom of movement,” the source added.

Mediators have asked both sides to postpone the talks until the arrival of US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Doha, they added.

A second Palestinian source said “some progress” had been made on plans for releasing Palestinian prisoners and getting more aid to Gaza.

But they accused the Israeli delegation of having no authority, and “stalling and obstructing the agreement in order to continue the war of extermination.”


‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis

Updated 12 July 2025
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‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis

  • Increasingly desperate messages from commercial vessels trying to avoid attack by Yemen militia

LONDON: Commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting increasingly desperate messages on public channels to avoid being attacked by the Houthi militia in Yemen.

One message read “All Crew Muslim,” some included references to an all-Chinese crew and management, others flagged the presence of armed guards on board, and almost all insisted the ships had no connection to Israel.

Maritime security sources said the messages were a sign of growing desperation to avoid attack, but were unlikely to make any difference. Houthi intelligence preparation was “much deeper and forward-leaning,” one source said.

Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the group said was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war. A lull this year ended when they sank two ships last week and killed four crew. Vessels in the fleets of both ships had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year.

“Seafarers are the backbone of global trade, keeping countries supplied with food, fuel and medicine. They should not have to risk their lives to do their job,” the Seafarers' Charity.


Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer

Updated 12 July 2025
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Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer

  • The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation

TUNIS: A Tunisian inmate was sentenced to six months in prison after he was reported to authorities for refusing to watch a TV news segment about President Kais Saied, his lawyer and an NGO said Friday.
The inmate’s lawyer, Adel Sghaier, said his client was initially prosecuted under Article 67 of the penal code, which covers crimes against the head of state, but the charge was later revised to violating public decency to avoid giving the case a “political” dimension.
The local branch of the Tunisian League for Human Rights in the central town of Gafsa said that the inmate had “expressed his refusal to watch (coverage of) presidential activities” during a news broadcast that was playing on TV in his cell.
He was reported by a cellmate, investigated and later sentenced to six months behind bars, the NGO said, condemning what it called a “policy of gagging voices that even extends to prisoners in their cells.”
Sghaier said his client had been held over an unrelated case that was ultimately dismissed, and that his family only learnt of his other sentence when he wasn’t freed as expected.
He acknowledged that his client voiced insults and demanded the channel be changed when Saied’s image appeared on TV, explaining the man blamed the president for “ruining his life” by striking a deal with Italy for the deportation of irregular Tunisian immigrants.
The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation.
A spokesman for the court in Gafsa could not be reached for comment.
Saied, elected in 2019, has ruled Tunisia by decree since a 2021 power grab, with local and international organizations decrying a decline in freedoms in the country considered the cradle of the “Arab Spring.”