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Despite deadly border clash, Iran-PKK war unlikely

Though attributed to the PJAK, the recent deadly border clash along Iran’s border with Turkey involved the PKK and is unlikely to escalate.
Members of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), sit with an Arab tribal fighter (L) in a house in the village of Umm al-Dhiban, northern Iraq, April 30, 2016. They share little more than an enemy and struggle to communicate on the battlefield, but together two relatively obscure groups have opened up a new front against Islamic State militants in a remote corner of Iraq. The unlikely alliance between the Sinjar Resistance Units, an offshoot of a le

The May 27 clash near the Iran-Turkey border between Iranian border guards and what the Iranian media described as a "terrorist group" has raised fears that yet another dimension will be added to the conflict-ridden Middle East.

While some Iranian media identified the group as the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), a group affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Al-Monitor has learned from several sources close to the PKK and PJAK that the incident did not involve PJAK fighters but rather that PKK guerrillas — the archenemy of Turkey — were unwittingly embroiled in the incident.

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