IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq are preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran, and the U.S. has asked Iraqi Kurds to support them, Kurdish officials told The Associated Press.
The Kurdish groups are widely seen as the most well-organized segment of the fragmented Iranian opposition and are believed to have thousands of trained fighters. Their entry into the war could pose a significant challenge to the embattled authorities in Tehran and could also risk pulling Iraq further into the conflict.
Khalil Nadiri, an official with the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, based in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, said Wednesday that some of their forces had moved to areas near the Iranian border in Sulaymaniyah province and were on standby.
He said Kurdish opposition group leaders had been contacted by U.S. officials regarding a potential operation, without giving more details.
Asked about reports that the Trump administration was considering arming Iranian Kurdish groups, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday: “None of our objectives are premised on the support or the arming of any particular force. So, what other entities may be doing, we’re aware of, but our objectives aren’t centered on that.”
Before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, triggering a new war in the Middle East, the PAK had claimed attacks on the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for Tehran’s violent crackdown on protests. But an official with the group said it had not sent forces from Iraq into Iran.
If the Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish groups were to join the war, it would be the first entry of a significant ground force into the battle. The Kurdish groups have battle experience from the fight against the Islamic State group.
An official with Komala, another of the Kurdish Iranian groups, said Wednesday that their forces are ready to cross the border within a week to 10 days and were “waiting for the grounds to be suitable.” He spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
Kurds in Iran have a long history of grievances and uprisings against both the current Islamic Republic and the monarchy that preceded it. During the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Kurds were marginalized and repressed and sometimes rebelled.
After Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the new theocracy also battled Kurdish insurgents. Iranian forces destroyed Kurdish towns and villages in fighting that killed thousands over several months.
While they share a desire to see the current authorities ousted, the Kurdish groups have also butted heads with other opposition groups — notably the faction led by the former shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, who has accused the Kurds of being separatists aiming to carve up Iran.
The potential operation has put leaders of the Iraqi Kurdish region in a delicate position.
Three Iraqi Kurdish officials told the AP that a call took place Sunday night between U.S. President Donald Trump and Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani — the heads of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq — to discuss the situation in Iran.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
One of the officials said Trump had asked the Iraqi Kurds to militarily support the Iranian Kurdish groups in operations in Iran and to open the border to allow the Iranian Kurdish groups to move freely back and forth.
When asked about the call and reports that Trump has sought military support for Iranian Kurdish groups, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “He did speak to Kurdish leaders with respect to our base that we have in northern Iraq,” but denied that Trump had agreed to a specific plan.
The Iraqi Kurdish official said the Iraqi Kurds were concerned that getting directly involved in the conflict would draw a harsh Iranian response. Already the Kurdish region has seen a string of drone and missile attacks by Iran and allied Iraqi militias in recent days, targeting U.S. military bases and the U.S. Consulate in Irbil as well as the Kurdish groups' bases.
While most of the attacks have been intercepted, civilian homes have been damaged, and the region is suffering from electricity cuts after a key gas field halted operations due to security concerns.
In a statement, the PUK confirmed that Talabani had spoken by phone with Trump, who “provided clarification and vision regarding U.S. objectives in the war.” The statement said the PUK “believes that the best solution is a return to the negotiating table.”
Spokespeople for the Kurdish regional government in Iraq and for Barzani declined to comment.
The news site Axios first reported the call between Trump and the Kurdish leaders, and CNN reported that the Trump administration was in discussions with Kurdish groups over providing military support.
The presence of armed Iranian Kurdish groups in northern Iraq has been a point of friction between the central Iraqi government in Baghdad and Tehran.
Iraq in 2023 reached an agreement with Iran to disarm the groups and move them from their bases near the border areas with Iran — where they potentially posed an armed challenge to Tehran — into camps designated by Baghdad.
Their military bases were shut down and their movement within Iraq restricted, but the groups did not give up their weapons.
Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qassim al-Araji said in a post on X that Ali Bagheri, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, had requested in a call between them “that Iraq take the necessary measures to prevent any opposition groups from infiltrating the border between the two countries.”
Al-Araji said Iraq is committed to “preventing any groups from infiltrating or crossing the Iranian border or carrying out terrorist acts from Iraqi territory” and noted that security reinforcements had been sent to the border.
In addition to retaliation by Iran, any movement by Iraqi Kurds to join a cross-border attack would likely inflame tensions with Iran-backed Iraqi militias, which have already claimed missile and drone strikes on Irbil in recent days.
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Abdul-Zahra reported from Baghdad. Abby Sewell in Beirut and Konstantin Toropin and Michelle Price in Washington contributed.
Iraqi Kurds inspect the damage to their homes, after a drone attack struck their neighbourhood in Irbil, Iraq, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Salar Salim)
Members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan PDKI stand at a checkpoint leading to their base in the Koya district of Irbil, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Rashid Yahya)
Member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan PDKI stands at a checkpoint leading to their base in Koya district of Irbil, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Rashid Yahya)
BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Colombians milled into voting stations on Sunday in the first round of the South American nation’s presidential election, choosing between candidates with radically diverging visions for the future of peace in a country haunted by decades of armed conflict.
The vote, seen as a referendum on outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s policies, comes 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
That agreement offered hope to break the nation out of a vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government but violence has roared back since then, coming to a head in the lead-up to the presidential vote. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally.
In a country where the fight for peace has long been a part of the political ethos, the question of how to address the conflict is once again dividing the country.
The vote is slated to send a message to Latin America at a time voters are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies, like providing opportunities to youths and rooting out corruption, to solve security ails, turning instead to heavy-handed security crackdowns like El Salvador's. It also comes as the Trump administration is placing renewed pressure on the region.
“Today's election isn't just important for us, it's important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia's capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”
There are 11 candidates running for president, but the election has basically turned into a three-horse race.
Senator and peace-builder Ivan Cepeda — a Petro ally — has led the polls and promises to carry on with Petro's “total peace” initiative to negotiate with the country’s remaining rebel groups and sign peace agreements with them in an effort to resolve the persistent crisis.
While the peace plan has largely failed as criminals have taken advantage of ceasefires with the government, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.
Running against Cepeda are Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, who have vowed to come down on armed groups with a heavier hand.
De la Espriella — a bombastic lawyer known as “The Tiger” — has particularly gained traction among voters in recent weeks for pitching himself as an outsider keen on emulating the heavy-handed tactics used in El Salvador’s war on gangs, which sharply reduced gang violence but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.
Valencia is considered the political protege of Colombia's former president and strongman Álvaro Uribe, who governed from 2002 to 2010 with strong support from the United States and whose government beat back FARC rebels in an offensive that took a massive civilian toll.
Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for U.S. President Donald Trump even as he has taken a more aggressive stance toward Latin America than any U.S. president in decades and has pressured nations like Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico to more forcefully crack down on criminal groups.
If no candidate wins at least 50% of the vote — something extremely rare in Colombia — the two top vote-getters will face a runoff in June.
Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress who was stitching a pair of jeans on Friday in downtown Bogotá, Colombia's capital, said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.
While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country's medical infrastructure, she said she was voting for de la Espriella because violence in rural areas of the country has gotten out of hand. She said negotiating peace pacts was simply “rewarding” armed groups.
“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned.”
Others, like Acevedo, the sociologist strolling out of a polling station on Sunday with packs of other voters, said a security crackdown like the one promoted by de la Espriella would only be returning to past military campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia's cycle of violence.
He said he planned to vote for Cepeda, adding that while the government hasn't done a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward with their political coalition's efforts to take a different approach in addressing the country's violence.
He added that his main critique of Petro's administration was the power grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.
“We're a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more war.”
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
A voter marks a ballot during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Supporters of presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda of the ruling Historic Pact coalition gather outside the polling station where he voted during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda of the ruling Historic Pact coalition gestures to supporters after voting during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Voters check polling information during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
President Gustavo Petro shows a ballot during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Voters line up at a polling station during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defenders of the Motherland movement depart a polling station after voting during the presidential election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Soldiers patrol as voters arrive at a polling station during the presidential election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Electoral workers set up a voting center in preparation for Sunday's presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man rides his motorcycle past the ruins of homes destroyed five months earlier in an attack by dissidents of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in Buenos Aires, Cauca, Colombia, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.(AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Presidential candidate Sen. Paloma Valencia of the Democratic Center party waves supporters during a campaign rally in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defenders of the Motherland movement and his running mate Jose Manuel Restrepo, left, raise their fit from behind a bullet proof booth during a campaign rally in Barranquilla, Colombia, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Sen. Ivan Cepeda, presidential candidate of the ruling Historic Pact coalition, speaks to supporters during a campaign rally in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
