Iraqi Kurdish Leaders Propose Peace Initiative Between Iran and Exiled Iranian Kurdish Groups

Leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq announced during the annual Middle East Research Institute forum in Erbil on October 12, 2026, that they have held discussions with Iranian authorities to initiate a peace process between Tehran and exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Bafel Talabani stated that preliminary talks had taken place in Tehran to resolve decades-long hostilities and shield the autonomous region from repeated cross-border bombardments.

Talabani compared the initiative to the Turkish state's negotiations launched in October 2024 with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, noting that Iranian officials responded positively to regional mediation. Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani adopted a more cautious stance, clarifying that while talks have been actively considered and raised in Tehran, they have not yet advanced to the formal stage achieved in Turkey. Barzani also reprimanded Iranian Kurdish groups for behaving irresponsibly since the outbreak of the wider US-Israel-Iran war on February 28, 2026, asserting that their rhetoric endangered Iraqi Kurdistan and prompted regional security forces to reinforce and seal the international frontier.

The peace initiative follows the September 30, 2026, withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq, an exit that stripped the Kurdistan Region of air defenses. Iran has launched more than 1,000 missile and drone attacks into northern Iraq since late February 2026, killing 32 people, including 19 Kurdish opposition members, while opposition groups reported 420 attacks causing 23 fatalities. Tehran carried out three drone strikes immediately following the coalition withdrawal, including an October 12 strike on the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan's Azadi Camp near Koya and an October 8 strike in Khabat north of Erbil.

Exiled opposition groups expressed deep skepticism and stated they were neither informed of nor involved in the initiative. Fariba Mohammadi of Komala and spokespersons from the Kurdistan Freedom Party stated they received no formal dialogue proposals from Tehran or third parties, citing past assassinations of Kurdish negotiators as grounds for distrust. Meanwhile, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan spokesperson Khalid Azizi confirmed the party pledged to Baghdad and Erbil that it would not use Iraqi territory as a staging ground. Iraqi, Kurdish, and Iranian officials are scheduled to meet on October 19, 2026, to address border security under the 2023 bilateral agreement.

Thousands of Iranian Kurdish refugees and armed opposition members have lived in exile across Iraqi Kurdistan since the 1980s, representing groups such as the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Komala, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, and the Kurdistan Freedom Party. In March 2023, Baghdad and Tehran concluded a bilateral security pact obligating Iraqi authorities to relocate these opposition factions away from the border and disarm their camps. Tensions surged after Iran blamed the exiled groups for instigating the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, subjecting their northern Iraqi facilities to periodic drone and artillery strikes.

Diplomatic outreach between Tehran and Kurdish factions carries a fraught history marked by previous breakdowns and violence. High-profile negotiations collapsed after the assassinations of Kurdish leaders Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna in 1989 and Sadegh Sharafkandi in Berlin in 1992, which opposition groups attribute to Iranian state agents. Although a limited 2011 ceasefire between Iran and the Kurdistan Free Life Party halted executions of political prisoners in exchange for suspended armed operations, subsequent talks held in Oslo in 2019 among four Kurdish parties failed to yield a political settlement.