The US president says he would be “totally in favor” of a Kurdish ground attack on Iran amid reports that Washington is inciting rebellion.
Donald Trump has expressed public support for a possible Kurdish offensive against Iran as the United States pushes to internally destabilize the Iranian system of government.
“I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I would be totally in favor of it,” the US president told the Reuters news agency on Thursday when asked about the prospects of a Kurdish rebellion in Iran.
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Several US media outlets have reported that Trump called on the leaders of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq to allow Iranian Kurdish groups to launch a ground offensive inside Iran.
In his comments Thursday, Trump declined to say whether the United States would provide air support to the Kurdish rebels.
The White House had confirmed that the US president was in contact with Kurdish leaders in Iraq, but denied that Trump accepted a plan to promote an armed uprising by the Kurds in Iran.
“The president has had many calls with partners, allies and leaders in the region, in the Middle East,” Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday.
“He spoke to the Kurdish leaders regarding our base that we have in northern Iraq.”
US assets in Erbil, in the Kurdish region of Iraq, have been the target of repeated Iranian drone and missile attacks since the war began.
Iran is home to millions of Kurds, most of whom live in the west of the country.
Kurds also represent a sizeable ethnic minority in Iraq, Syria and Turkiye.
Earlier this week, Mustafa Hijri, head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), a prominent Kurdish opposition group, called for defection from the Iranian army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“I call on all conscious and freedom-seeking soldiers and personnel throughout Iran, and especially in Kurdistan, to leave the barracks and military centers of the IRGC, the army and other military forces of the regime, reject their assigned duties and return to the embrace of their families,” Hijri wrote in X.
“This action is important both to preserve their lives in the face of these attacks and as a sign that they are turning their backs on the military and repressive forces of the regime.”
On several occasions in recent decades, Washington has urged Kurdish groups seeking autonomy to rebel against governments it considered hostile in the region, only to cut off support or fail to come to their aid when the political situation changes.
Some critics have warned that stoking ethnic tensions in Iran could lead to a civil war that could further destabilize the entire region.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Press TV reported that the IRGC launched missiles and drones at the headquarters of “anti-Iran terrorist groups in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.”
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq condemned Iranian attacks on the region while “categorically denying reports that it played a role in an offensive against Iran.
“At the same time, the Kurdistan Regional Government and its political parties are not part of any campaign to expand the war and tensions in the region,” the KRG said in a statement. “On the contrary, we call for peace and stability in the region.”
But with government troops showing no signs of desertion despite thousands of American and Israeli strikes, the Trump administration has struggled to find a prominent friendly force on the ground in Iran.
Despite the US president’s repeated calls for Iranians to rise up against their government, there have been no significant protests since the war began on Saturday.
