Trump Courts Kurdish Forces for Iran Ground Operations. Ankara Is Watching.

By Bosphorus News Staff

The United States is holding high-level discussions with Kurdish factions in Iraq about potential ground operations inside Iran, as part of its ongoing military campaign Operation Epic Fury. American intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have approached Iranian Kurdish militias based along the Iraq-Iran border about launching attacks on Iranian security forces in western Iran.

President Trump has personally engaged with Kurdish leaders. He spoke by phone with Iraqi Kurdish figures Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani, as well as Mustafa Hijri, president of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, one of the groups recently targeted by IRGC drone strikes. The discussions point to a potential shift toward ground operations and internal pressure on the Iranian regime, with Kurdish forces possibly seizing and holding territory in northwest Iran.

The groundwork for this coordination predates the current conflict. On 22 February, five Iranian Kurdish opposition groups announced in Erbil the formation of a new umbrella alliance aimed at coordinating political action against Iran's ruling system. The timing now appears significant.

The development places Washington on a collision course with Ankara. Türkiye views Kurdish armed groups, particularly those linked to the PKK, as existential threats and has long conducted operations against Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. Arming Iranian Kurdish factions, with Iraqi Kurdistan as a potential staging ground, risks inflaming a relationship already strained by the broader conflict. As Bosphorus News previously outlined in "The Cost of Chaos: Türkiye's Rational Line on the Iran Conflict", Ankara's core concern has never been Iranian strength but the instability a weakened Iran could unleash on its borders.

Source: EUalive / Antonia Kotseva. Full story: https://eualive.net/trump-courts-kurds-for-ground-operations-in-iran-as-turkey-fumes/