Hewlir- Southern Kurdistan: Iranian troops fired into the air and detained an Iraqi border patrol officer after mistaking Iraqi border guards for Kurdish freedom fighter on a northern stretch of the two countries’ border, officials said on Friday 14th May.
There was no exchange of fire between the two sides in Thursday’s incident, contrary to some reports, said Major General Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga security forces.
“The Iranians thought the Iraqi forces belonged to the Kurdish opposition PJAK (the Free Life Party of Kurdistan),” Yawar said.
“After no more than five minutes of shooting, which was from the Iranian side only, the incident ended when the Iraqi soldiers explained … that they are Iraqi border guards.”
An Iraqi officer was detained when he went over to the Iranian forces to identify himself, said Brigadier General Ahmed Gharib, head of Iraq’s border guards in Iraq’s northern Kurdish province of Sulaimaniya.
“Detaining the Iraqi officer was not justified. We have made calls through official channels to release him, which was supposed to happen today, but did not,” he said.
“The Iraqi forces did not open fire, so there was no reason to detain the officer.”
Thursday’s incident took place in a border area near the town of Darbandikhan in Sulaimaniya, 260 km (160 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
It should be noted the in a retaliatory response to the execution of five Kurdish human right activists, the Defence Forces of Eastern Kurdistan (HRK) which is the military wing of PJAK, killed 16 Iranian soldiers.
The Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) was founded in 2004 as the result of the systematic and continuous oppression of the Kurdish nation by the Iranian government. PJAK upholds the libertarian ideology of Apoism which advocates an ecological-democratic society with gender equality. PJAK’s main goal is to set up a democratic system in Iran and to create a democratic con-federation for the long- oppressed Kurds.
Its initial objective is to limit and change the authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran and to democratise it in four fundamental areas; the nation, the society, the citizenship and to evolve the state into a self-governing institution, which is able to deliver public services, to maintain public security; it would be thus synonymous to public authority.
For the past 6 years PJAK has been the most influential organisation of the Kurdish population in the Eastern Kurdistan and has the strongest popular support in this part of the Kurdistan. Three particular dynamics forces namely the women, students and the youths have been increasingly joining PJAK with the aims of transforming their society. Women constitute more than 48% PJAK’s membership from the basic to the leadership of the organisation.