Iranian Kurdish leader: International investors should avoid Islamic Republic

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) Mustafa Hijri warned multinational corporations on Monday about investing in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In a 17-18 October conference on the Middle East held at the European Parliament by the Progressive Alliance of social-democratic parties, Hijri declared that Iran was not an “island of stability” as the Islamic regime propagated.

"The internal policies of the Islamist regime in Iran have resulted in violations of human rights, poverty, widespread social problems, staggering corruption, and factional infighting over power in pursuit of the plundering of the state’s resources and assets," said Hijri, according to the PDKI website.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members led by the United States that imposed international sanctions on Iran in 2006 lifted them ten years later per a 2015 agreement with the Islamic Republic after years-long negotiations that largely curbed its ambitions to enrich uranium.

The agreement dubbed as "the Iran Deal" went into effect at the beginning of 2016, thus opening ways for international corporations to invest in and trade with Iran in exchange for the country's suspension of its nuclear program.

In a first, the US Government granted the European civil aircraft manufacturer, Airbus a license to sell 17 aeroplanes to Iran worth about $25 billion less than a month ago, according to VOA.

The KDPI leader believed the sanctions affected Iran "to the extent that they endangered the survival of the regime so much so that the Supreme Leader Khamenei was willing to accept the conditions of the international community."

Citing the ongoing human rights violations of women, ethnic and religious minorities and the Islamic regime's emboldened interventions in Middle Eastern countries, Hijri said complaints and condemnations would not compel Iran to change.

Hijri was joined by the representatives of parties from around the world and other parts of Kurdistan, including Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Turkey's Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the Belgian capital of Brussels.

Founded in 1945 by the iconic Kurdish leader and President of the short-lived Kurdistan Republic Qazi Muhammad, PDKI has for decades been fighting for Kurdish autonomy and rights in Iran.

The PDKI reignited a conflict with Iran in June, 20 years after their silencing of weapons in 1996 for the sake of not jeopardizing Kurdish gains in the neighboring Iraq.

Editing by Ava Homa