On Thursday, 20 June, Andishkada Jaraian, or think-tank Jaraian (translated as ‘current’) held its first interactive open meeting on the Clubhouse platform. Participants in the meeting were dr. Ibrahim Farahani, expert on Turkey and Turkish politics; Sajjad Atashbar, researcher at Jaraian think-tank; Hedwig Kuijpers, Belgian journalist; dr. Mansour Miri, geopolitics analyst based in Washington; Ardeshir Pashang, Kurdish-Iranian Politician, Researcher and TV Personality; and Kamran Karami, Head of Saudi Arabia Studies Department of the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies (CMESS).
The theme of the two-hour-lasting discussion was “PKK and Iranian-Turkish relations”. The Persian-spoken soundfile can be downloaded at the think-tank’s Telegram channel @jaraiancenter.
In the discussion, there was mention of the current Turkish military operations inside Iraqi Kurdistan, targeting the PKK; the rivalries and cooperation between the Iranian and Turkish states concerning the PKK; a risk assessment of the PKK for both Turkey and Iran, in which was concluded that PKK poses a much larger threat to Turkey than it does to Iran; fields of possible cooperation between the two states concerning PKK and Kurdish nationalism as a whole; Iranian internal politics and minority policies; the allegations that Iran often uses PKK as a tool against Turkey, which have been found incorrect; and the threat new developments within Turkish policies can form for Iran.