Iran says Iraq will expel exiled Kurdish opposition members

Iran’s ambassador to Iraq said on Tuesday that Baghdad had agreed to “expel” or hand over members of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups who have taken refuge on the Iraqi side of the border.

The announcement came after senior Iraqi security officials repeatedly told AFP that Baghdad was refusing to do so, fearing for the lives of the Kurdish exiles.

Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, an oil-rich area in the north of the country, has long hosted camps and bases for Iranian Kurdish rebel groups, which Tehran labels terrorists who serve US or Israeli interests.

“During a meeting of the joint security commission — attended by the Iranian delegation and the Iraqi National Security Adviser — the two parties agreed to expel the members of the Iranian separatist terrorist groups from the Iraqi Kurdistan region or hand them over to Iran,” ambassador Mohammad Kazem Al-Sadegh wrote on X.

On Monday, Iraq’s National Security Council hosted a meeting of the two delegations in Baghdad. A governmental delegation from the Kurdistan region also took part, according to a statement from the media office of Iraqi National Security Adviser Qassim Al-Abboudi.

The statement said the talks focused on “ways to address current challenges and to harmonise the visions of the parties concerned”.

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In 2023, Baghdad and Tehran signed an agreement aimed at strengthening security along their shared border — particularly in the Kurdistan region — and “neutralising the Kurdish opposition”.

The deal put an end to recurring Iranian bombardments targeting the groups and helped ease tensions between the two countries.

But since the outbreak of war in the Middle East in late February, triggered by US-Israeli strikes, Iran has resumed deadly attacks on the Kurdish groups.

Under the 2023 agreement, Iraqi authorities disarmed the Iranian Kurdish groups, moving them away from the border and transferring them to camps.

On February 22 this year, a few days before the outbreak of the war, five of the groups announced the formation of a political alliance aimed at overthrowing the Iranian government and guaranteeing the right to self-determination for the Kurds.