ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— Representatives of the Iranian government have told a visiting Kurdish delegation that Tehran will “understand” further independence of the Kurdistan Region from Iraq if “it does not pose a threat” to the neighboring Islamic Republic, according to a top Kurdish party official who attended the talks in Tehran last week.

Hadi Ali, a prominent member of the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) told Rudaw Tehran wanted assurances that the Kurdistan Region’s bid to break from Iraq will not destabilize the Islamic Republic which has its own sizeable Kurdish population with strong secessionist tendencies.

“I told them bluntly that if Baghdad fails to abide by the constitution, the Kurdistan Region has a right to employ other options, especially independence. They said if the issue is conducted peacefully, they will understand it."

“But what we noted was that they were not assured and expected assurances,” Ali said of the meeting with the influential Iranian Speaker Ali Larijani and the top advisor to the supreme leader, Ali Akbar Velayati in Tehran.Tehran has over the past decade officially supported Iraq’s territorial unity and repeatedly warned against the breakup of the country.

Iranian state media quoted Larijani last week as telling the KIU delegation that “those who want to create distance between the Kurds and the Iraqi government should not be allowed, since it will only benefit the enemies.”

Since Iran moved in to join the fight against the Islamic State, the Islamic Republic’s influence in Iraq has grown not only in the Shiite dominated regions of the country, but now also in parts of the Kurdistan Region.Many believe the deepening internal rivalries within the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has made the once powerful party particularly vulnerable to Iranian influence and compromise amid ongoing political discord in the Kurdistan Region.The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has notably taken a tougher stance against what it views as Tehran’s increasing interference in Kurdish domestic politics culminating in the Kurdish president, from the KDP, cancelling a planned trip to Tehran last year.

Prominent PUK politician Faridon Abdulqadir told Rudaw in an interview this week that President Masoud Barzani cancelled his trip to Tehran due to the Iranians' reluctance to hoist the Kurdish flag along with the Iranian flag in Barzani’s planned meetings in Tehran.

“He (Barzani) was planning to visit Iran and everything was in order for the trip to take place. There was one request, that Iran would also hoist the Kurdish flag during the meetings as a sign of respect for the Kurdistan Region and he insisted on that. He is still expecting the Iranians to go along with that (request) and facilitate the trip,” Abdulqadir said.



