{"id":5286,"date":"2009-02-06T08:53:29","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T16:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=5286"},"modified":"2009-02-06T08:53:29","modified_gmt":"2009-02-06T16:53:29","slug":"a-concrete-gesture-toward-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/06\/a-concrete-gesture-toward-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"A Concrete Gesture Toward Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As pointed out in this post by Rasmus Christian Elling of the University of Copenhagen<\/a>, the U.S. Treasury \u00e2\u20ac\u201c notably Stuart Levey, whose zeal in trying to make it difficult for Iranian banking interests to do business outside their borders has been widely remarked \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) a terrorist group, or, more accurately, a group controlled by the better known Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of Turkey. PJAK, of course, was named by Seymour Hersh<\/a>, among others, as a likely beneficiary of alleged U.S. covert aid designed to harass the Islamic Republic two years ago after it claimed responsibility for a number of deadly attacks against Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Revolutionary Guard and other regime targets. Tehran itself has long claimed that PJAK is supported by the U.S. and Israel. Like the PKK, it is based in Iraqi Kurdistan.<\/p>\n

While designating PJAK a terrorist group is unlikely to have any immediate practical impact on its operations, it raises the question, as noted by Dr. Elling, whether this marks the first concrete gesture \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or token of good faith \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by the Obama administration toward Iran or whether this was simply the coincidental fruition of a bureaucratic process that may have been set in motion by the publication by the New York Times<\/em> of a front-page article<\/a> on the relationship between PJAK and the PKK back in October, 2007. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a clear answer as yet, but the timing and the fact that Levey, who is being retained by the Obama administration in his current position as Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, has strong political instincts argues in favor of the more purposeful interpretation.<\/p>\n

Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the release put out by Treasury:<\/p>\n

February 4, 2009
\nTG-14<\/p>\n

Treasury Designates Free Life Party of Kurdistan a Terrorist Organization<\/p>\n

Washington, DC \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish group operating in the border region between Iraq and Iran, under Executive Order 13224 for being controlled by the terrorist group Kongra-Gel (KGK, aka the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK). <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153With today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s action, we are exposing PJAK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s terrorist ties to the KGK and supporting Turkey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts to protect its citizens from attack,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Stuart Levey, Treasury\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. <\/p>\n

Designated in December 2002 under E.O. 13224, KGK has been involved for more than 20 years in targeting Turkish government security forces, local Turkish officials, and villagers who oppose the KGK in Turkey. Turkish authorities have confirmed or suspect that KGK is also responsible for dozens of bombings since 2004 in western Turkey.<\/p>\n

The KGK leadership authorized certain Iranian-Kurdish KGK members to create a KGK splinter group that would portray itself as independent from but allied with KGK. PJAK was created to appeal to Iranian Kurds. KGK formally institutionalized PJAK in 2004 and selected five KGK members to serve as PJAK leaders, including Hajji Ahmadi, a KGK affiliate who became PJAK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s General Secretary. KGK leaders also selected the members of PJAK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 40-person central committee. Although certain PJAK members objected to the KGK selecting their leaders, the KGK advised that PJAK had no choice.<\/p>\n

As of April 2008, KGK leadership controlled PJAK and allocated personnel to the group. Separately, PJAK members have carried out their activities in accordance with orders received from KGK senior leaders. In one instance, PJAK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s armed wing, the East Kurdistan Defense Forces, had been acting independently in Iran. KGK senior leaders immediately intervened, however, and recalled the responsible PJAK officials to northern Iraq.<\/p>\n

Under E.O. 13224, any assets PJAK has under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with PJAK.<\/p>\n

Identifying Information
\nFREE LIFE PARTY OF KURDISTAN
\nAKAs:
\nKurdistan Free Life Party
\nParty of Free Life of Kurdistan Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane
\nPJAK
\nPEJAK
\nPEZHAK<\/p>\n

Location: Qandil Mountain, Irbil Governorate, Iraq
\nAlt, Location: Razgah, Iran<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As pointed out in this post by Rasmus Christian Elling of the University of Copenhagen, the U.S. Treasury \u00e2\u20ac\u201c notably Stuart Levey, whose zeal in trying to make it difficult for Iranian banking interests to do business outside their borders has been widely remarked \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5288,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5286\/revisions\/5288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5286"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}