US State Department. Please Delist The PJAK,!
The PJAK is presently listed as a terrorist organization by Iran, United States, Turkey.
The United States State Department list the PJAK as an FTO. According to the United States Department, an FTO is "Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) are foreign organizations that are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended. FTO designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business." Kurdistan "organization's terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States."
Policies and structure
Members of the PKK founded the PJAK in 2004 as an Iranian equivalent to their leftist-nationalist insurgency against the Turkish government.[15] ` The present leader of the organisation is Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi. According to the Washington Times, half the members of PJAK are women, many of them still in their teens.[16] The group actively recruits female guerrillas and states that its "cruelest and fiercest fighters" are women drawn to the movement's "radical feminism".
PJAK is a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union or KCK (Kurdish: Koma Civakên Kurdistan), which is an alliance of outlawed Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council. The KCK is in charge of a number of decisions, and often releases press statements on behalf of its members.
The PJAK also has sub-divisions:
Armed wing - Eastern Kurdistan Units (Yekîneyên Rojhilatê Kurdistan, YRK)
Women's armed wing - Women's Defence Forces (Hêzên Parastina Jinê, HPJ), led by Gulistan Dogan.
Youth and student branch
The PKK is also a member of KCK,[9][10] and according to the New York Times, the PJAK and PKK "appear to a large extent to be one and the same, and share the same goal: fighting campaigns to win new autonomy and rights for Kurds. The only difference is that the PJAK fights in Iran, and PKK fights in Turkey. They share leadership, logistics and allegiance to Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader currently imprisoned in Turkey."
Like the present PKK goals in Turkey, PJAK leaders say their long-term goals are to establish an autonomous Iranian Kurdistan within the Iranian state. The PJAK leadership claims that the group's goals are mainly focused on replacing Iran's theocracy with a "democratic and federal government" with self-rule for Arabs, Azeris, Kurds, and all other ethnic minorities.
