US was arming Iranian dissidents through Kurds while negotiating with Tehran, Trump reveals
Donald Trump spent Easter Sunday making a series of explosive admissions about the Iran war - revealing that the United States covertly armed protesters inside the country weeks before launching military strikes, even as American negotiators were sitting across the table from senior Iranian officials in Europe.
Speaking to Fox News' Trey Yingst by phone, Trump disclosed that Washington supplied weapons to Iranian demonstrators who took to the streets late last year, driven by worsening economic conditions as a result of US sanctions.
The operation, however, seems to have gon awry. The arms, sent through Kurdish intermediaries, never reached their intended recipients.
"We sent them a lot of guns. We sent them through the Kurds, and the president says he thinks the Kurds kept them," Yingst told Fox News, paraphrasing Trump's account.
The admission confirms earlier reports that the CIA was working to arm Iranian Kurdish forces. Trump said on 5 March that it would be “wonderful” if Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq crossed the border and attacked the Iranian government.
Days later, he was more cautious. “We’re very friendly with the Kurds, as you know, but we don’t want to make the war any more complex than it already is. I have ruled that out. I don’t want the Kurds going in.”
Trump's admission reveals that the US was far more heavily involved in seeking to destabilise the Iranian government at the very moment its diplomats were engaged in back-channel talks with Tehran.
Those protests were ultimately crushed resulting in hundreds being killed. Trump told Yingst that Iranian authorities killed more than "40,000 civilians" in the crackdown, but there is no evidence to back up this claim.
Separately, Trump gave more details to Axios about the rescue of an American F-15 crew member shot down over Iran on Friday. The pilot was recovered late Saturday after a days-long operation, during which US officials feared his beacon was being used as a trap.
Trump's language in describing the search for the downed airman drew immediate condemnation. Referring to ordinary Iranians, he told Axios: "Thousands of these savages were hunting him down. Even the population was looking for him. They offered people a bonus if they captured him."
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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