Smoke rises following an explosion, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
QAMISHLI, Syria March 8 (Reuters) – Kurdish residents of northeast \u200bSyria warned Iran’s Kurds against aligning with the U.S. to fight the Iranian government, citing their own experience in Syria in recent \u200cmonths as evidence their Iranian counterparts would be “abandoned.”<\/p>\n
Iranian Kurdish militias based in northern Iraq have consulted with the United States in recent days about whether and how to attack security forces in western Iran, as the United States and Israel pound Iran with air strikes<\/a>, Reuters has reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Syria’s Kurds warned their Iranian counterparts against partnering with Washington.<\/p>\n “I hope that the Kurds of \u200bIran will not ally themselves with America, because they will abandon them,” said Saad Ali, a 45-year-old resident of the northeastern Syrian Kurdish \u200btown of Qamishli.<\/p>\n “Tomorrow, if an agreement is made between them (the U.S.) and the Iranians, they will eliminate you. Do not \u2060make our mistakes,” he told Reuters.<\/p>\n Syrian Kurdish fighters aligned with the U.S. more than a decade ago to fight the Islamic State group, setting up \u200btheir own semi-autonomous zone in the territory they had seized from the ultraconservative Islamist fighters.<\/p>\n But in January, Syria’s new army under President Ahmed al-Sharaa captured most of \u200bthe Kurdish-held areas in a sweeping offensive. Syria’s Kurds called on the U.S. to intervene on their behalf, and felt betrayed<\/a> when Washington instead urged them to merge with Sharaa’s forces.<\/p>\n It remains a bitter experience for Syria’s Kurds and a lesson they say should be heeded by Iranian Kurds.<\/p>\n “In my opinion, the Kurds in Iran should \u200bmaintain a firm stance: they will not engage in any wars within Iranian territory without firm, signed guarantees from the United States regarding the future of \u200bthese Kurdish regions in Iran,” said Amjad Kardo, a 26-year-old Syrian Kurd in Qamishli.<\/p>\n “We Kurds here in Syria, in particular, have had a negative experience with the Americans in \u200cSyria, and \u2060their abandonment of Kurdish resistance movements.”<\/p>\n An Iranian Kurdish source said Kurdish leaders did have concerns about being “betrayed” like the Kurdish groups in northern Syria.<\/p>\n The source said Iranian Kurdish leaders had requested guarantees from the U.S., without saying what they were.<\/p>\n U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters on Thursday it would be “wonderful”<\/a> if Kurdish forces crossed the border from northern Iraq into Iran, but declined to answer a question on whether the U.S. would offer them air support if they did so.<\/p>\n On \u200bSaturday, he appeared to switch positions, \u200btelling reporters he doesn’t want Kurdish \u2060fighters going into Iran.<\/p>\n Ahmed Barakat, head of the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party in Syria, told Reuters that Iranian Kurdish forces should exercise “extreme caution”.<\/p>\n Barakat said the decision was ultimately up to them, but he believed that “accepting the \u200binvitation of the United States and being considered the spearhead in confronting or weakening the Iranian regime is \u200bnot, at present, in \u2060the best interest of the Kurds of Iran.”<\/p>\n Israel has been holding its own talks with Iranian Kurdish insurgent groups based in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan for around a year, Reuters reported last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Kurds are an ethnic group<\/a> which was left stateless a century ago when the borders of the modern Middle East emerged from the \u2060collapsing Ottoman \u200bEmpire.<\/p>\n Mostly Sunni Muslims, they speak a language related to Farsi and are concentrated in a mountainous \u200bregion straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.<\/p>\n In Iraq, they inhabit three northern provinces led by their own regional government. But in other countries – Iran, Turkey and now Syria – \u200btheir dreams of an autonomous region or state have remained out of reach.<\/p>\n Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Also how Israel the U.S. once supported the Kurds before they abruptly abandoned them.<\/p>\n U.S Rolls in MASSIVE 200 truck convoy to Arm Kurds in Iraq<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n‘A NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE’ WITH THE U.S.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
‘EXERCISE CAUTION,’ SYRIAN KURDS SAY<\/strong><\/h3>\n