ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Iranian Consulate General in Erbil on Wednesday urged Kurdish leaders to expel the Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region, which they described as having a “destructive presence” and accused of working as proxies of the United States and Israel.

The presence of Kurdish dissident groups in the Region has proved a salient point of concern amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, with Western media outlets reporting of US covert initiatives to sponsor a cross-border offensive despite repeated, vehement denials from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Iran hopes that the leaders of the Kurdistan Region “will review the destructive presence of armed terrorist, criminal, and traitorous groups in the Kurdistan Region,” the Consulate General of Iran in Erbil said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Now is the right time to try and expel them for the crime of blatant espionage for the United States and the Zionist regime,” the statement added.

The consulate also urged people of the Kurdistan Region “to take action to cleanse” the region of what it described as “traitors,” claiming the opposition groups are “in alliance with the United States and the Zionist regime,” the statement added.

US President Donald Trump earlier in April said that the US had delivered weapons to Iranian protesters through the Kurds, saying, “I think the Kurds kept them,” Fox News reported.

Major Kurdish opposition parties of western Iran (Rojhelat) denied Trump’s claims, speaking to The New Region on Sunday.

The Iranian consulate stressed that, based on Trump’s recent remarks, the groups are “not ordinary refugees,” adding that their presence in the Kurdistan Region comes “while they are fully armed and have threatened Iranian soil with military attacks, unrest, and tension every day.”

The groups were previously accused in early March of launching ground incursions into Iran from the country’s western border to join the conflict against Tehran, reports they strongly denied.

Bases belonging to the Kurdish opposition armed groups in the Kurdistan Region have been continuously targeted by Tehran since the initiation of the US-Israeli war on Iran, leading to a number of casualties.

The statement also reaffirmed Tehran’s concerns regarding the groups’ presence in the region, which it said had been shared with Erbil and Baghdad previously. 

It added that throughout the years it has also been “agreed upon and emphasized many times within the framework of the trilateral security agreement between Iran, Iraq, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”

In 2023, Iraq and Iran signed a security agreement under which Baghdad pledged to disarm and relocate these Iranian Kurdish opposition groups from border areas, following repeated warnings from Tehran.