Iranian Kurds in Iraq Await Regime Change Before Returning Home

Thousands of Iranian Kurds living in exile in Iraq say they will only return to their homeland if Iran's current government falls. These refugees, displaced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, face ongoing attacks from Iran-backed militias while hoping for political change that would allow their safe return.

QUSHTAPA, Iraq (AP) — Displaced as children from Iran decades ago, thousands of Kurdish refugees now living in Iraq maintain cautious optimism that ongoing conflicts involving the U.S. and Israel could destabilize the Iranian government that drove them from their homeland.

These Iranian Kurds cling to dreams of returning to ancestral homes they know only through wall paintings and aging family photos displayed in their current dwellings.

However, these thousands of displaced people understand that their desire for political independence and their long-standing resistance to Iran’s religious leadership make a safe return improbable. They insist they will only return home if Iran gets a new government that ensures their protection and supports their political objectives.

More than 300 families live in Kawa Camp, located in the Qushtapa district of Irbil within northern Iraq’s self-governing Kurdish territory. These families were forced from their homes following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which triggered prolonged warfare with Kurdish independence movements.

Many current residents descend from those original fighters. As children, they escaped with their families from Kermanshah, a northern Iranian province. Some later joined resistance movements while in exile, launching attacks against Iranian security personnel. Most now struggle economically on the fringes of Iraqi Kurdish society, lacking citizenship, full legal rights, access to public services, or property ownership rights.

At Kawa Camp, residents’ hopes for homecoming are clouded by profound distrust of international powers that have repeatedly used their struggle for strategic purposes. Many interpreted recent reports about the Trump administration potentially asking for their support in ground operations against Iran as another example of such exploitation.

“From 1979 until now, this has been our only hope — that the regime will fall. I’m watching the clock; if it falls now, I’ll return home the next second,” said a 57-year-old member of the Iranian Kurdish opposition party living in Kawa, who fled Iran at age 11.

This individual, like most people interviewed for this report, requested anonymity due to concerns about retaliation from Iran-supported Iraqi militias that have increased attacks on Iranian Kurdish installations. They also worry about Iranian intelligence surveillance, as many still have family members living in Iran.

Iraqi Kurds control a semi-independent region in northern Iraq. Many have conducted insurgency operations aimed at creating their own nation, which they call Kurdistan. Iranian Kurds have extensive historical complaints against both the Islamic Republic and the monarchy that came before it.

Community leader Jehangir Ahmadi displays a painting of a street from his birth village in Iran’s predominantly Kurdish Kermanshah province, which shares a border with Iraq. He hasn’t visited that street in almost five decades, and his childhood memories play like vintage footage: He remembers playing among those dusty walls while village elders would gather under the poplar trees.

Ahmadi recalls the frantic escape from home and the lengthy wait to cross the border. His family initially stayed in a border camp before relocating to another facility in the desert regions of western Anbar province. Security conditions worsened dramatically after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, leading the United Nations to relocate them again.

Through the years, temporary shelters were replaced with permanent housing, marketplaces developed, and the Iranian Kurds gained employment rights, with many working as traders, cab drivers and factory employees. However, purchasing property or vehicles requires finding an Iraqi guarantor who must accept legal responsibility for them, essentially binding their futures to that guarantor, Ahmadi explained.

“For all our lives in Iraq we were paying the price of leaving. Until now people look at us like we are slaves,” Ahmadi said. “Until now we don’t have good work, no good place to live.”

According to Ahmadi, Kurds, particularly Iran’s Kurdish population, have consistently been victims throughout history. He cited the brief Republic of Mahabad in northwestern Iran, which had Soviet backing before collapsing in 1976; Iran’s 1975 withdrawal of support for a failed Kurdish rebellion against Iraq; Iraq’s 1988 chemical weapon attacks against Kurds; and territorial losses in northeast Syria following President Bashar Assad’s December 2024 downfall.

Therefore, Ahmadi expressed doubt about the reported U.S. request for backing an Iranian Kurdish military force in the current conflict.

“We didn’t trust that they will support us because we are wounded nation, we have been betrayed many times,” he said.

Iranian Kurdish opposition militias operating from Iraq have faced attacks from Iran’s Iraqi allies since the Iran conflict began.

Military leaders and Iraqi Kurdish politicians report they lack the capability to launch a genuine ground assault without U.S. air support, and that the concept proposed by the United States was never formally discussed with Washington.

A high-ranking Iraqi Kurdish official revealed that some Iranian Kurdish organizations initially anticipated Iran’s religious government would quickly collapse and planned to advance into Iranian Kurdish regions to claim victory. Other Iraqi Kurdish leaders, viewing Tehran’s administration as more durable, gave them a stark warning: “You will be massacred,” according to the official.

Unit commander Rebaz Sharifi took cover in a mountain crevice when Iran-backed militias launched a drone attack on a Kurdistan Freedom Party base, waiting for additional strikes to end. The party is an Iranian-Kurdish nationalist independence organization known locally as PAK.

Sharifi reported there are approximately 8,000 to 10,000 Iranian Kurdish fighters — a number confirmed by two other Iraqi Kurdish officials. Apart from standard assault weapons, they lack advanced modern armaments and do not have drones, which are essential in contemporary warfare.

He stated that Iranian-Kurdish organizations are requesting security assurances, particularly air protection, to defend against Iranian rockets and drones.

“We don’t want to go now because we know we will die because of (Iranian) airstrikes and missiles,” he said. “It’s not the right time for this because Iranian forces still have power to control the skies.”

At just the possibility that these groups might prepare for deployment, Iran-backed forces in Iraq began launching almost daily aerial bombardments.

“So, imagine what they will do if we move there now,” Sharifi said.

The danger of ongoing attacks forced Kurdish fighters to relocate their families from military installations to nearby towns for protection.

In Kawa, a local resident connected to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan is providing shelter for a fighter’s wife and children from the party’s military branch. They relocated from the party’s Koya camp near the border due to persistent attacks during the war’s initial days.

The militia drone strikes haven’t targeted civilian areas yet, but the party member worries this could change as the conflict continues.

“Every day we are afraid of the militias,” he said. “We are nervous at night because we think they might hit here also.”

He also fears Iranian intelligence operations in the region.

“My relatives in Iran told me that they know where I work, what I do, and where I live,” he said.