Iran, Iraq set up committee against PJAK

Office of Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki announced that Baghdad and Tehran have established a joint security committee to fight the Iraq-based terrorist PJAK group."The Iraqi prime minister in a meeting with a number of reporters from foreign channels has said that Iran and Iraq have set up a joint security committee to fight the PJAK grouplet and its forces at Iraq's Northern borders," a statement released by Maliki's information office said on Tuesday. According to the statement, Maliki also underlined the friendly relations between Iran and Iraq, and said during the meeting with the foreign reporters that "we do not allow any terrorist group to settle on Iraq's soil and they will not be allowed to act against the neighbors of Iraq." No other details were released on the meeting or on Iran-Baghdad cooperation against the terrorist group. Earlier this week, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jaffari had said Iranian forces are in full control over the country's borders in the Northwest after they repelled the threat of the PJAK terrorist group completely. Speaking to FNA, Jaffari said PJAK terrorists imagined that Iranian forces are, at maximum, as good as the Turkish army in classic warfare and could never defeat partisans. "But, the IRGC's capability in both classic and asymmetric and guerrilla warfare surprised the PJAK terrorist group so much that they surrendered," he added. The new round of clashes between the two sides started in July after the IRGC arrested several teams of PJAK, who intended to infiltrate Iran to stage terrorist operations in the country. In response, Iran deployed about 5,000 military forces in the Northwestern parts of the country along its joint border with the Iraqi Kurdistan region. During the operations, the IRGC forces killed, injured and arrested tens of terrorists and destroyed their headquarters in the bordering areas of Alvatan near Sardasht city in Northwestern Iran. But, upon a request by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the group was given a one-month grace period during the Muslims' holy fasting month of Ramadan to retreat from the Northwestern borders of the Islamic Republic and stop its terrorist acts in these regions. But the PJAK terrorist group paid no heed to the KRG's appeals and mediation and martyred two local Kurdish forces. The IRGC resumed military operations against the Iraq-based PJAK terrorist group after its one-month deadline to the terrorist group ended. Senior Iranian political and military officials have always underlined that the IRGC will continue operations against the terrorist group in a bid to defend Iran's territorial integrity. PJAK reportedly called for a ceasefire with Iran after some of their members were killed and others injured in the IRGC's latest round of operations against the terrorist group. In September, the IRGC announced that it had arrested two senior commanders of the terrorist PJAK group in an operation in the Northwestern parts of the country. The number two man and second leader of the PJAK terrorist group, Majid Kavian, had also been killed in an earlier IRGC operation in Northwestern Iran. The deputy commander of the Iraq-based PJAK terrorist group, Majid Kavian, alias Semko Sarholdan, was killed in an IRGC operation in Northwestern Iran earlier this month. The website of the terrorist group confirmed his death in a statement. After the group sustained a heavy toll and injuries during the new round of IRGC operations, the ringleader of PJAK, Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi, told the BBC Persian channel that the group would continue fighting with Iranian forces if the IRGC refuses to accept the ceasefire. In reply, the IRGC said it would not accept a ceasefire with the PJAK before the Iraq-based terrorist group leaves Iranian borders. But, after repeated demands by the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government officials, the IRGC Ground Force called on the Iraqi Kurdistan's regional government to specify the terms and contents of the ceasefire demand presented by the Iraq-based PJAK terrorist group. The IRGC Ground Force also underlined the necessity for the withdrawal of all outlaws, anti-revolutionary forces and elements of the PJAK terrorist group from the bordering areas of Iran. Earlier reports had said that PJAK and PKK members had dug new tunnels in the Jasosan heights close to Iran's border regions over the past month, exploiting the IRGC ceasefire during the fasting month of Ramadan. In addition, PJAK and PKK terrorists received new weapons and equipment, including 120-millimeter mortars and walkie-talkies, from the US consulate in the Northern Iraqi city of Arbil during the ceasefire. PJAK, a militant Kurdish nationalist group with bases in the mountainous regions of Northern Iraq, has been carrying out numerous attacks in Western Iran, Southern Turkey and the Northeastern parts of Syria where Kurdish populations live. The separatist group has been fighting to establish an autonomous state, or possibly a new world country, in the area after separating Kurdish regions from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Iranian intelligence and security officials have repeatedly complained that Washington provides military support and logistical aids for such anti-Iran terrorist groups.