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(Washington, DC - May 5, 2011) - With the Middle East coming apart at
the seams and no coherent policy or set of principles to guide policy,
the Obama administration should support the people of Iran, the one
country where the population remains resolutely pro-American and firmly
opposed to the dictators who have been waging war on America for the
past 31 years.
President Obama appeared to be contemplating such an approach in March
when he delivered traditional greetings on the occasion of the Iranian
New Year (Norouz) and named Iranian dissidents.
While greater emphasis on the human rights abuses of the Iranian regime
is a welcome shift, the president spent the first two years of his
administration in a failed effort to make nice to Tehran’s terrorcrats,
responding with stony silence in June 2009 when millions of Iranians
took to the streets to protest the fraudulent “election” of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and were calling out to the United States to give them the
type of moral support the president offered on Norouz.
If Obama really wants to assist the Iranian people in their struggle
for freedom from a wretched regime, he could free the Iranian hostages.
Hostages? Yes, the United States is holding Iranians hostages. And it
ought to be front page news.
Those hostages are Iranian Kurdish freedom fighters, who were placed on
the Treasury Department’s list of international terrorist organizations
on February 4, 2009 as part of President Obama’s much-touted “outreach”
to the Iranian regime.
On paper, the Treasury sanctions against the Free Life Party of Iranian
Kurdistan, PJAK, merely prohibit PJAK from conducting business with any
U.S. person. Since the group has no U.S. office, does not raise funds
in the U.S., and does not lobby Congress, this might appear slightly
less forceful than a slap on the wrist.
But in reality, the Treasury action has had a chilling effect on PJAK’s
ability to interact with other Iranian opposition groups, who fear
guilt by association. “Some groups won’t deal with us because of this,”
a member of PJAK’s political leadership, Sherzad Kamangar, told me
during a trip to the group’s base in northern Iraq in February.
Iranian opposition groups know that PJAK has played a significant role
in the non-violent protests that have rocked Iran since the June 2009
elections. Hundreds of PJAK members and sympathizers have been
arrested. Scores have been executed, including Kamangar’s younger
brother, Farzad, a secondary school teacher who was hanged last May
along with four other Kurdish activists.
But PJAK’s efforts to help forge a united opposition front that would
be able to challenge the Iranian regime all across the country, not
just in Tehran, have come to a screeching halt because of the Treasury
designation. “This decision has clearly benefited the Iranian regime,”
another PJAK leader, Amir Karimi, told me.
On Jan. 26, 2011, the Treasury Department released a highly-redacted
memorandum in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from
PJAK’s U.S. lawyer, Morton Sklar, showing that the sole basis for
Treasury’s action against the group was an allegation that they are
“controlled by the KGK” – another name for the PKK.
The PKK is the much maligned Turkish group that has used spectacular
and bloody terror attacks to gain recognition of the rights of Turkish
Kurds, but that in recent years has advocated political dialogue with
the Turkish government.
The only problem with this rationale is that PJAK has no ties to the
PKK, other than the fact that both groups promote the rights of Kurds.
PJAK has its own elected “Majles,” or Congress, which in turn elects
the group’s officers. All of these leaders are Iranian. “We take
no orders from the KGK. They are active in different parts of
Kurdistan. There is no organizational relationship between us,” PJAK
secretary general, Rahman Haj Ahmadi, told me in a recent interview in
Europe. “Saying that PJAK takes orders from the PKK is like saying the
United States is taking orders from France,” he added.
Simply put, there is no factual basis for the Obama administration’s
decision to designate PJAK as a terrorist group. The only justification
was a desire by the Obama White House to placate the Tehran regime,
which saw the group as a threat.
PJAK has become a real life hostage to the Obama administration’s
strategic effort to reach an accommodation with the Iranian regime. Now
that this effort has failed, it’s time to set the hostages free. It’s
time for Treasury to remove PJAK from its terrorism list.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is President and CEO of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org. He is also the author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum]