Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz received a warm welcome from Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran earlier this month, where Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian thanked Turkey for helping prevent an Israeli plan to foment an armed insurrection by Kurdish groups in western Iran. A source familiar with the visit said senior Turkish officials had tried to convince their U.S. counterparts that the plan, devised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was unrealistic and could threaten Turkey's national security.
But Ankara also conveyed another message to Tehran: stop attacking Kurdish groups in the region. Several people familiar with the matter said Turkey was concerned that, after the failure of the Kurdish insurgency plan, further Iranian action against Kurdish groups in Iran and Iraq could push them into Israel's arms.
Turkey's Delicate Peace Process
The report said Turkey is deeply invested in its peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and that further Iranian action in Iraq, where the group is present, could undermine the sensitive process. The Turkish government plans to introduce draft legislation in parliament in two days that would pave the way for former PKK militants to return to Turkey within six months. The partial pardon would offer non-violent PKK cadres an opportunity to reintegrate into society.
Mehmet Alaca, described as a prominent Turkish expert on Iraq, said increased Iranian military pressure could push Iranian Kurdish opposition groups such as the PDKI, Komala and the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, closer to the West, particularly Israel. He said, "The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which has hosted these groups for many years, would bear the greatest cost of such a development." He added, "Besides risking the transformation of the region into a new front in the Iran-Israel rivalry, this scenario could make the balance between the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, in Iraq, the party led by the Talabani family, even more fragile. It could also provide Tehran with a justification for further expanding its influence in the region on security grounds."
Iran's Military Campaign
Alaca said Iran has bombarded PDKI camps in northern Iraq since the war began five months ago in late February. He also said Turkey had sought to minimize the destabilizing impact of Iranian influence in northern Iraq by courting the traditionally pro-Iranian PUK, which normalized relations with Ankara earlier this month through an official visit to Turkey.
He said, "Following the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the KDP and PUK, despite their intense rivalry on numerous issues, adopted a common position that Iranian Kurdish opposition groups should not become involved in the Iran conflict." He added, "For Turkey, the most critical dimension is the peace process and the new security architecture it is seeking to build for the post-PKK era. The extension of the Iran-Israel rivalry into Iraqi Kurdistan and the re-emergence of the Kurdish card at the centre of the regional power struggle would directly undermine Turkey's long-term security calculations."
Netanyahu's Rejected Plan
The report also said U.S. President Donald Trump indirectly suggested on several occasions that Ankara had even considered entering the war to prevent the emergence of another Kurdish separatist entity on its borders, following its experience in Syria. It said senior Trump aides were highly sceptical of Netanyahu's regime-change proposal at the White House, including the notion that Kurdish forces could mount a ground invasion of Iran. The CIA director reportedly used one word to describe Netanyahu's regime-change scenarios: "farcical." U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly said, "In other words, it's bullshit."
Why This Matters:
Turkey's warning to Iran reveals the dangerous complexity of the regional security environment, where Tehran's military campaigns against Kurdish groups risk creating the very problem they're meant to solve. If Iranian pressure drives Kurdish opposition groups into Israeli hands, it would transform northern Iraq into another front in the Iran-Israel conflict, threatening Turkey's fragile peace process with the PKK and potentially forcing Ankara into direct military intervention. The Turkish government's planned legislation offering reintegration to non-violent PKK cadres represents a genuine attempt to resolve a decades-old security challenge through political means rather than military force. Iran's continued bombardment of Kurdish camps in northern Iraq, ongoing for five months, threatens to collapse this delicate process and push Kurdish groups toward Western and Israeli support, exactly the outcome Tehran claims to fear. The episode also highlights the strategic incoherence of Netanyahu's regime-change proposals, dismissed as "farcical" by senior U.S. officials who recognize that arming Kurdish insurgents would destabilize multiple American allies simultaneously.