Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said Turkey helped prevent armed Iranian Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq from opening a new front against Tehran during the war triggered by joint US and Israeli strikes.
Araghchi portrayed the proposed offensive as part of a US and Israeli-backed attempt to bring about regime change and fragment Iran.
In an interview lasting more than an hour with Iranian media personality Javad Moghouei on Sunday, Araghchi said he contacted Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, then-Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Iraqi Kurdish leaders early in the conflict.
Araghchi said he warned them that “if the slightest threat emerges toward us from the Iraqi Kurdistan region, we would confront it … and we would certainly respond.”
According to Araghchi, Turkey subsequently intervened with Washington.
Turkey “talked to the Americans and adopted a very firm position in this regard. A series of efforts foiled this plot,” he said, without elaborating.
The groups at the center of the claims are armed Iranian Kurdish opposition organizations based in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. They are distinct from the Iraqi Kurdish parties that govern the region.
The possibility that these groups could launch an operation inside Iran was widely discussed after the United States and Israel began attacking the country on February 28.
Within days of the outbreak of the war, US President Donald Trump publicly indicated that he would support Kurdish groups taking up arms against the Iranian government.
“I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that,” Trump told Reuters. “I’d be all for it.”
Iraqi officials, speaking anonymously, previously told Al-Monitor that Trump had pressed Iraqi Kurdish leaders not to obstruct a ground offensive launched from their territory. Trump subsequently reversed course, publicly saying he did not want Kurdish forces entering Iran.
“I don’t want the Kurds going in,” Trump said. “They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them I don’t want them going in. The war’s complicated enough without getting the Kurds involved.”
Araghchi’s remarks also appear to provide context for Trump’s repeated claims that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had considered intervening in the war on Iran’s side but stayed out after being urged to do so by the US president.
Following a White House meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in late June, Trump described Erdoğan as “a leading candidate to go into the war with Iran, maybe even on Iran’s side.”
“I asked him to stay out of it, and he stayed out of it,” Trump said. He repeated the assertion during the NATO summit held in Ankara on July 7 and 8.
Trump’s claims puzzled observers because Turkey and Iran, despite their longstanding regional rivalry and disagreements over several conflicts, have avoided direct war for more than two centuries.
Citing unnamed senior Israeli officials, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that Turkey had threatened to provide air support to Iran if Kurdish forces entered the country as part of an Israeli intelligence operation. Neither Ankara nor Washington has confirmed that allegation.
Turkey consistently called for diplomacy and de-escalation throughout the conflict but had not previously commented publicly on whether it had played a role in preventing Iraqi Kurdish armed groups from entering the war. Araghchi’s remarks appear to be the first public acknowledgment by a senior Iranian official of Ankara’s behind-the-scenes involvement in the issue.
Iran has meanwhile continued attacking armed Iranian Kurdish organizations in northern Iraq. At least 10 members of the Komala Toilers of the Kurdistan Party were reportedly killed in a suspected Iranian missile strike in the Iraqi Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah on Friday.
Ankara has its own security concerns about armed Kurdish groups in Iran. The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), one of the most prominent such organizations, has close links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
The war began with joint US and Israeli strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior Iranian military commanders and officials. Tehran retaliated with attacks on Israel, US military facilities and other targets across the region.
A ceasefire reached in April subsequently collapsed, leading to renewed fighting. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that the country was engaged “in a full-scale war” following another wave of US strikes on Iranian targets.