On April 25, rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) announced during a media conference in the Kandil Mountains of northern Iraq that they would start to withdraw from Turkey on May 8. There are indications that this process could isolate Iran and possibly end a cease-fire between the PKK’s Iranian offshoot and Iranian forces.
While the media conference was being held, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was holding a two-day drill called "Toward Jerusalem" in the province of West Azerbaijan (April 25-26). Two weeks before, there was a clash in the same province between Kurdish rebels and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in city of Maku, near the Turkish border. The Kurdish news agency Firat claimed that more than 176 Kurds were arrested in large campaigns.
