Photo: A fighter in the Peshmerga forces of Iranian Kurdistan/ AFP
Sulaymaniyah Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is witnessing forced evictions of Kurdish refugees opposed to Iran to camps established by the Iraqi authorities in the governorate, under the supervision of the Iraqi authorities in implementation of the security agreement signed by Baghdad with Tehran last year.
The security forces in Sulaymaniyah, whose administration is under the control of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, an ally of Iran, began to forcibly transfer the families of Iranian Kurds after seizing their homes from their areas in the Zirgwez area and other areas of Sulaymaniyah to a new camp established in the Surdash area northwest of the governorate. According to sources in the Iranian Kurdish parties, the first phase includes the families of the three Komala parties.
The implementation of the eviction operations by the Sulaymaniyah administration resulted in denunciation by the Kurdish parties, citizens, and most of the political activists opposed to Iran in the region, considering the implementation of the agreement an Iranian conspiracy to weaken Iraqi Kurdistan.
The official spokesman for the Kurdistan Freedom Party, which opposes Iran, Khalil Naderi, said, “The Kurdistan Freedom Party condemns the forced evictions targeting the Kurds of Eastern Kurdistan (Iranian Kurdistan) residing in the Kurdistan Region, because they are carried out in response to the Iranian regime and are a conspiracy aimed at weakening the Kurdistan Region and distorting it in front of the Iranian Kurds, and spreading division between the Kurdish parties and the Kurds.” Iraq signed a security agreement with the Iranian regime in March 2023, which stipulated the dismantling of the Iranian Kurdish opposition groups that have been present in Iraq for decades, moving their headquarters away from the border between the two countries, disarming them, and transferring them to camps under the supervision of the Iraqi government in the Kurdistan Region. The Iraqi government, in coordination with the Sulaymaniyah Governorate administration, has so far established one camp in the Surdash area of Sulaymaniyah Governorate, to which the authorities in Sulaymaniyah have transferred more than 30 families, and the eviction operations are still ongoing.
