One of Iran's most powerful armed Kurdish opposition groups has pushed back against Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi's claim, made in an interview aired on Sunday, that Turkey blocked Kurdish involvement in US-Israeli plans to overthrow the Iranian regime. Siamand Moeini, a member of the Executive Council of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that it was inconceivable that either the United States or Israel would abandon “a strategic objective of that magnitude out of concern for Turkey’s objections.” Indeed, PJAK believes that, despite their recent squabbles, regime change remains a common goal for Israel and the United States.

Moeini also dismissed claims that his party was secretly collaborating with Turkey and Iran to thwart any efforts by fellow Kurdish groups to weaken the Iranian regime. He noted that four PJAK fighters had perished in a June ambush by regime forces in Mahabad inside Iran. Two members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are believed to have died in ensuing clashes. Moreover, PJAK sympathizers are routinely arrested along with other Kurds who dare press for ethnic rights. At least 36 Kurdish prisoners are thought to have been executed by the Iranian regime since January, according to figures provided by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.

At the same time, Moeini warned against alleged Turkish attempts to turn Iran’s ethnic Azeri population against the Kurds, saying this would have “catastrophic consequences” for the region.

PJAK was founded in 2004 by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) along with its Syrian franchise, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003. This was part of a proactive strategy of building up an organized presence in both countries in anticipation of Western intervention against regimes there. The PKK has been waging an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 but declared a new ceasefire in March last year in line with ongoing peace talks between Ankara and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.