Iran, Iraq to form anti-PJAK committee

Iran and Iraq have planned to set up a joint committee to fight the activities of the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) terrorist group.

On Monday, Iran’s Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Danaifar told Mehr News Agency that officials from Iran and the Kurdistan Regional Government have already drawn up a joint plan to combat PJAK terrorist activities and that the two sides will soon form a high committee on the issue.

The Iranian envoy noted that high-ranking Iranian and Iraqi military figures will join to establish the committee.

Danaifar pointed out that he has called on Iraqi officials to stop the infiltration of PJAK militants and members of other terrorist groups into Iran. He added that Iraqi officials have always stressed that Iraq’s constitution prohibits militant groups from using the country’s soil to launch terrorist attacks against the country’s neighbors.

Members of the terrorist PJAK group — an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — regularly engage in armed clashes with Iranian security forces along the country’s western borders with Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

The PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist group by much of the international community, is responsible for many deadly operations in northern Iraq and southern Turkey.

Both terrorist groups launch their attacks from Iraq’s Qandil Mountains in the areas under the control of Kurdistan Regional Government.

The United States in February 2009 designated PJAK as an international terrorist organization.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has recently deployed 5,000 soldiers to the northwest of the country along its common border with the Iraqi Kurdistan region.