the PJAK Kurdish rebel band that takes refuge inside Iraq.
Many in Baghdad have grumbled about Maliki’s silence, saying it was a sign of his dependence on and subservience to Tehran.
Apparently Maliki has now decided his silence was hurting him more inside Iraq than it was helping with Iran. During Maliki’s silence, members of his cabinet and other Iraqi officials have quite freely lambasted Iran for shelling inside Iraq.
Last Wednesday, the Al-Iraqiyah television station reported that Maliki said there was a consensus within Iraq rejecting the Iranian shelling of Kurdish areas. That was stunning in its mildness.
But Al-Iraqiyah went on to report that Prime Minister Maliki said the government rejects any attempts to violate Iraq’s sovereignty or to interfere in its internal affairs.
That sounded tough but might not irritate Tehran since it isn’t shelling the Mount Qandil area to interfere in internal Iraqi matters but to get control over internal Iranian matters.
Most importantly from Iran’s standpoint, Maliki said it was necessary to get rid of terrorist organizations that are using the border region to launch attacks. That is what Iran has long been asking Baghdad to do. But while Maliki said what Iran wanted to hear, he did nothing practical, such as dispatching troops to Qandil, leaving matters on the purely rhetorical level.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, the deputy leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), also denounced the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) for its attacks on Iran. But he did not suggest that the Iraqi national army or even Kurdistan’s own peshmerga militia should do anything about PJAK using Iraq as a base for attacks on Iran,
Instead, he complained that the US Army had failed to do anything to stop PJAK.
In Tehran, the government says the Pasdaran have dispatched 5,000 troops to the border region to confront PJAK. Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said they were in the process of wiping out PJAK.
“With regard to the fine measures taken by the Pasdaran, the PJAK terrorist organization will definitely move toward deterioration and disintegration. The PJAK’s condition is such that we feel it is on the verge of collapse,” Moslehi said. He and his predecessors have said the same thing about other anti-regime groups, which continue to operate against the government.
The regime has repeatedly linked PJAK to the US government, even though PJAK is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Last week, PressTV, the English language arm of Iranian state broadcasting, reported that four US military officers had met with PJAK representatives. PressTV said the Americans are providing PJAK with remote-controlled mines and advanced communications equipment.