Speaking during a phone interview with Fox News, Trump said the weapons were sent to help protestors challenge the Iranian government. “We sent guns to the Iranian protestors, a lot of them. We sent them through the Kurds. And I think the Kurds kept them,” Trump said.
He repeated the claim during the interview, stating again that many weapons were sent but suggested that Kurdish groups may have taken control of them. The Kurdish community is a large ethnic group of around 30 million people living across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. They speak their own language with several dialects, and most follow Sunni Islam.
Some Kurdish militant groups operating in the region have been declared terrorist organisations by the Iranian government. Trump also claimed that the Iranian government killed around 45,000 people during protests against the regime.
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However, there has been no official confirmation from Iran regarding the number of deaths. Different reports from activists and international observers have estimated the number of casualties between about 7,000 and 30,000.
Trump’s comments come at a time of rising tensions between the United States and Iran. He recently warned Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping route for oil supplies. Trump said the US could take further action if the waterway remained closed.
In a message posted on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” Earlier during the ongoing conflict, Trump had also expressed support for the possibility of a Kurdish uprising against the Iranian government.
At one point, he said he would welcome such an action. However, he later clarified that he did not want Kurdish forces to launch an offensive against Iran. Meanwhile, leaders in the Kurdistan region of Iraq have denied involvement in the conflict.
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Qubad Talabani, Deputy Prime Minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, said the ongoing war between the United States and Iran is not their fight.
“We have been in too many wars… They have not asked us for any assistance related to pushing Iranian opposition groups into Iran,” he said. Around 9 million Kurds live inside Iran. While some Kurdish militant groups exist, many have reduced armed activities in recent years due to political pressure in the region.
However, Iran has repeatedly accused Kurdish groups of working with Western or Israeli interests and has carried out strikes against militant positions in northern Iraq.
