Turkey cautious but unfazed by US plan to mobilize Iranian Kurds against regime
Plans to involve Iranian Kurdish armed groups in the US-Israeli campaign against Tehran raise potential security, ethnic and refugee spillover risks for Turkey, but officials in Ankara appear largely unfazed.
Plans to involve Iranian Kurdish armed groups in the US-Israeli war against Iran could complicate Turkey’s security calculus, but Ankara does not appear to see the plans as an immediate game-changer.
Al-Monitor broke the story this week that an alliance of six Iranian Kurdish groups backed by the United States was preparing to enter Iran to join the US-Israeli campaign aimed at weakening, or potentially dislodging, the Islamic Republic. In addition to the CIA, Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, has reportedly been working for some time to empower Iranian Kurds.
The prospect of Iranian Kurdish armed groups joining the United States and Israel in the war against Iran presents several potential challenges for Turkey, from renewed Kurdish militancy near its borders to the risk of ethnic tensions and displacement spilling out of Iran. Yet officials in Ankara appear skeptical that such groups could significantly alter the balance inside Iran.
According to well‑placed sources, the groups are assembling in areas controlled by Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and preparing to move toward Iran’s Kurdish‑majority provinces.
