PDKI Statement on Iranian Missile Attack and Execution of Kurdish Political Prisoners

The Executive Board of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) issued a statement on yesterday’s missile attack against the party’s headquarters and adjacent refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan by the Iranian regime, which was simultaneous with the execution of Kurdish political prisoners.

In its statement, the Executive Board of PDKI singles out the lack of international pressure on the Iranian regime to account for why the regime, following repeated threats by its senior military leaders, made use of ballistic missiles against Kurdish political parties and refugee camps in a neighboring country. In the Iranian missile attack, 15 Kurdish politicians and civilians died, while 50 others were injured.

The public as well as foreign governments were informed by the Cooperation Center of Iranian Kurdistan’s Political Parties on July 26, 2018, regarding Iranian threats against the headquarters of the Kurdish political parties and adjacent refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. However, both before and after the latest missile attack against PDKI’s headquarters and adjacent refugee camps in Koya, the international community and especially the Western powers, who have expressed concern over Iran’s missile program, have remained silent.

Unless Iran’s use of ballistic missiles against Kurdish opposition parties and refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan is widely condemned internationally, Iran will no doubt feel emboldened to use them again against other political actors and countries in the Middle East and beyond.

Yesterday’s missile attack is the latest in a series of terrorist attacks that the Iranian regime has carried out against Kurdish political activists and civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan since January 2018.

Iran also executed Kurdish political prisoners Ramin Hossein-Panahi, Zanyar Moradi and Loghman Moradi early in the morning on September 8, 2018.

Meanwhile, the Central Command of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga Forces issued a separate statement on the execution of two Peshmergas who were taken as prisoners of war by Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Naser Azizi and Ahad Shabab had been wounded in an ambush and subsequently taken as prisoners of war. Naser Azizi and Ahad Shabab were executed by the IRGC, which is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions.

In its statement, the Executive Board of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan sends its deepest condolences to the families of the latest victims of Iranian terrorism.

PDKI also reiterates that as the systematic violence, terrorist acts, assassinations, imprisonment of political activists, executions, and arbitrary killings of civilians by the Iranian regime in Kurdistan for the past four decades have demonstrated, the Kurdish national liberation movement will continue the unwavering and legitimate struggle for the Kurdish people’s human dignity and national rights.