Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan

Not to be confused with Kurdistan Democratic Party (Iran).
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
Hizbi Dêmokrati Kurdıstani Êran
Secretary-GeneralMustefa Hicri
FounderQazi Mehemed
Founded16 August 1945; 79 years ago (1945-08-16)
Split fromTudeh Party of Iran[1]
Headquarters
Membership (2008)1,200[3]
IdeologyKurdish separatism[4]
Democratic socialism[4]
Social democracy[4]
Progressivism[4]
Secularism[5]
Historic:
Anti-imperialism[6]
Conservative traditionalism[7][verification needed]
Political positionCentre-left[8]
Historic:
Left-wing[9]
National affiliation
International affiliationSocialist International (Consultative member)
Progressive Alliance
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
Website
pdki.org
LeadersQazi Mehemed (1940s)[12]
Dates of operation
  • 1945–1946
  • 1966–1967
  • 1977–1978[13]
  • 1979–1996
  • 2016–present
Active regionsIraqi Kurdistan; Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan Provinces in Iran
Size
  • 12,750 infantry and cavalry (1946 estimate)[12]
  • 10,000–25,000 (1979–1983 estimate)[14]
  • 7,000–10,000 regulars plus 14,000–20,000 part-time guerillas (1980 estimate)[15]
  • 12,000 Peshmergas along with 60,000 armed peasants (1982 estimate)[16]
  • 1,500 (1996 estimate)[13]
  • 1,200–1,800 (2008 estimate)[3]
Allies
Opponents

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI; Kurdish: حیزبی دێموکراتی کوردستانی ئێران, romanized: Hizbi Dêmukrati Kurdıstani Êran, HDKA; Persian: حزب دموکرات کردستان ایران, romanized: Ḥezb-e Demokrāt-e Kordestān-e Īrān), also known as the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), is an armed leftist separatist movement of Kurds, exiled in northern Iraq with branch offices in Europe.[26] It is banned in Iran and thus not able to operate openly.[27] The group calls for either separatism in Iran or a federal system.[28][29][16]

Since 1979, KDPI has waged a persistent guerrilla war against Iran.[26] This included the 1979–1983 Kurdish insurgency, its 1989–1996 insurgency and recent clashes in 2016. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials have called the party a terrorist organization.[30] Hyeran Jo of Texas A&M University classifies KDPI as "compliant rebels", i.e. rebels that kill fewer than 100 and refrain from killing for more than half of their operating years. According to Jo, in order to gain domestic and international legitimacy, the KDPI denounces violence against civilians, claiming commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Geneva Convention Article 3, and as of 2007 is one of the signatories to the Geneva Call's ban on anti-personnel mines.[31]

  1. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand (1982). Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press. p. 453. ISBN 0-691-10134-5.
  2. ^ Andreas Wenger; Alex Wilner (2012). Deterring Terrorism: Theory and Practice. Stanford University Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-8047-8347-7.
  3. ^ a b Iran Defence and Security Report, Including 5-Year Industry Forecasts, Business Monitor International, 2008 [Q1], archived from the original on 2017-02-28, retrieved 2017-02-27
  4. ^ a b c d Neuberger, Benyamin (2014). Bengio, Ofra (ed.). Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland. University Of Texas Press. p. 268. ISBN 978-0-292-75813-1.
  5. ^ Monshipouri, Mahmood (2008). "Kurds". Iran Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic. Vol. 1. Greenwood Press. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-313-34163-2.
  6. ^ David McDowall (1992). The Kurds: A Nation Denied. Minority Rights Group. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-873194-30-0. The KDPI (which had moved to the left in the meantime) adopted an anti-imperialist position, declaring their opposition to the Shah's regime...
  7. ^ Abbas Valli (2014). Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity. I.B.Tauris. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-78076-823-6.
  8. ^ Abdulla Hawez (7 July 2016). "Iranian Kurds Are Rising Up Against the Mullahs". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  9. ^ Rodolfo Stavenhagen (2016). Ethnic Conflicts and the Nation-State. Springer. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-349-25014-1.
  10. ^ a b Mark Edmond Clark (2016). "An Analysis of the Role of the Iranian Diaspora in the Financial Support System of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq". In David Gold (ed.). Terrornomics. Routledge. pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-1-317-04590-8.
  11. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand (1982). Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press. pp. 301. ISBN 978-0-691-10134-7.
  12. ^ a b Michael G. Lortz (2005). "The Kurdish Warrior Tradition and the Importance of the Peshmerga". Willing to Face Death: A History of Kurdish Military Forces - the Peshmerga - from the Ottoman Empire to Present-day Iraq (M.A.). Florida State University Libraries. p. 27.
  13. ^ a b Hiro, Dilip (2013). "Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran". A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East. Interlink Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62371-033-0.
  14. ^ a b Jeffrey S. Dixon; Meredith Reid Sarkees (2015). "INTRA-STATE WAR #816: Anti-Khomeini Coalition War of 1979 to 1983". A Guide to Intra-state Wars: An Examination of Civil, Regional, and Intercommunal Wars, 1816-2014. SAGE Publications. pp. 384–386. ISBN 978-1-5063-1798-4.
  15. ^ Razoux, Pierre (2015). The Iran-Iraq War. Harvard University Press. Appendix E: Armed Opposition. ISBN 978-0-674-91571-8.
  16. ^ a b Alex Peter Schmid; A. J. Jongman (2005). "Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran". Political terrorism: a new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases, theories, & literature. Transaction Publishers. p. 579. ISBN 978-1-4128-0469-1.
  17. ^ Belgin San-Akca (2016). States in Disguise: Causes of State Support for Rebel. Oxford University Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-19-025090-4. For example, the Soviet Union supported the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), first against the shah's regime in Iran and then against the religious revolutionary regime. Throughout the Cold War period, the Soviet funds were regularly channeled to the KDPI.
  18. ^ Entessar, Nader (2010). Kurdish Politics in the Middle East. Lanham: Lexington Books. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-7391-4039-0. OCLC 430736528. Throughout much of the 1980s, the KDPI received aid from the Ba'thi regime of Saddam Hussein, but Ghassemlou broke with Baghdad in 1988 after Iraq used chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja and then forced Kurdish villagers to...
  19. ^ David Romano (2006). The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity. Cambridge University Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-521-68426-2. The Iraqi PUK and Iranian KDPI have often assisted each other, and roughly 5,000 Kurdish volunteers from Turkey went to Iran to fight Khomeini's government forces in 1979.
  20. ^ Andrew Duncan (2000). "Iran". Trouble Spots: The World Atlas of Strategic Information. Sutton. ISBN 978-0-7509-2171-8. The KDPI and Komala agreed to cooperate in late 1982 and enjoyed two years of military success, but when they split...
  21. ^ Joseph R. Rudolph Jr. (2015). Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts, 2nd Edition [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 490. ISBN 978-1-61069-553-4. Moreover, in August 2012, the KDPI and the Komala, now led by Abdullah Mohtadi, reached a strategic agreement calling for federalism in Iran to undo the national oppression suffered by the Kurds.
  22. ^ Zabir, Sepehr (2012). Iran Since the Revolution (RLE Iran D). Taylor & Francis. pp. 108–110. ISBN 978-1-136-83300-7.
  23. ^ Michael M. Gunter (2010). Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Scarecrow Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-8108-7507-4. During the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) cooperated closely with the Tudeh, or Iranian Communist Party.
  24. ^ Hussein Tahiri (2007). The Structure of Kurdish Society and the Struggle for a Kurdish State. Bibliotheca Iranica: Kurdish studies series. Vol. 8. Mazda Publications. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-56859-193-3. Between 1984 and 1991, the KDPI and Komala fought each other vigorously.
  25. ^ It is banned in Iran and thus not able to operate openly.Hajir Sharifi. "PKK- PDKI clash exposes decades of cold war". Rudaw. Retrieved 2022-04-15.
  26. ^ a b Buchta, Wilfried (2000), Who rules Iran?: the structure of power in the Islamic Republic, Washington DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, pp. 102, 104, ISBN 978-0-944029-39-8
  27. ^ United Kingdom: Home Office, Country Information and Guidance - Iran: Kurds and Kurdish political groups, July 2016, Version 2.0, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/578f67c34.html [accessed 18 March 2017]
  28. ^ "Iranian Kurds Return to Arms". Stratfor. 29 July 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
  29. ^ "Freedom House", Freedom in the World 2011: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011, p. 321, ISBN 978-1-4422-0996-1
  30. ^ Golnaz Esfandiari (29 June 2016). "Explainer: What's Behind Sudden Clashes In Northwestern Iran?". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
  31. ^ Hyeran Jo (2015). Compliant Rebels: Rebel Groups and International Law in World Politics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 125–126. ISBN 978-1-107-11004-5.