Declassified UK Docs Expose Western Plot to Divide Iran

Date: 20 October 2025 - 22:05

News ID: ۱۴۴۸۷۴

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Newly declassified
British government documents reveal a sinister Western strategy aimed at undermining Iran’s sovereignty by exploiting ethnic divisions and stoking separatist ambitions among the Kurdish population.
In the early 1980s, at the height of the Iraq-Iran war, the UK actively encouraged exiled anti-Iranian groups to promise the Kurds a federal state — a clear attempt to fracture Iran from within and destabilize the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Despite officially refusing direct involvement in efforts to overthrow Iran’s government, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) acknowledged in internal communications that any hope for exiled anti-Iran elements to gain traction inside Iran hinged on winning over minorities, especially the Kurds.
The UK bluntly advised subversive figures to “buy” Kurdish support by promising autonomy and federalism, an egregious interference in Iran’s internal affairs and an act of blatant political manipulation.
In November 1981, John Graham, Deputy Undersecretary at the FCO, met with Mehdi Samii, a prominent exile and former governor of Iran’s Central Bank, discussing strategies to unite subversive forces. Graham explicitly stated that an exiled entity must “look for an ally who had a local power base, access to armed supporters, and links throughout the country,” singling out the Kurds as the key group to target. He added that the “best way to buy Kurdish support would be to promise a Federal State,” an offer Samii conceded was necessary to secure minority backing once the regime changed.
Lord George Brown, a former UK Foreign Secretary, who was lobbying for Britain to restore its influence in the Middle East, further urged cultivating Kurdish alliances by promising federalism not only to the Kurds but also to other ethnic minorities — a deliberate Western tactic to sow division and weaken Iran’s national unity. Brown cautioned that involving the Kurds might provoke complications in neighboring Iraq and Turkey, yet showed no concern for the devastating regional fallout such interference would cause.
Internal British assessments also revealed that finding a suitable foreign base for subversive groups was problematic, with Turkey considered a possible gateway into Iran — a fact that underscores regional destabilization designs. The documents suggest that Lord Brown might have been complicit in efforts to assist Iraq’s attempts to destabilize Iran, revealing a murky web of Western-backed subversion.
Further evidence of the West’s covert campaign emerges from correspondence with General Gholam-Ali Oveissi, former Chief of Staff under the Shah, who admitted maintaining ties with Kurdish tribal leaders but warned that Iranian Kurds might eventually accept any foreign power offering autonomy, even the Soviet Union. This underlines the perilous nature of foreign meddling in Iran’s ethnic affairs.
The British government also repeatedly rejected pleas from Kurdish advocates within the UK calling for direct intervention in Iran’s Kurdish insurgency,

which erupted shortly after the 1979 revolution. Although denying official support, the FCO acknowledged the potential for other powers such as Iraq and Israel to back the Kurdish rebellion, revealing tacit approval of foreign interference against Iran.

A Kurdish lobbying group’s September 1980 letter to the FCO claimed Britain might be preparing to send a military mission to Iranian Kurdistan to assist the separatist movement. The UK response firmly denied any such plans but stopped short of condemning the insurgency, emphasizing instead that the British government recognized the borders of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey since World War I — a superficial stance given their ongoing undermining of Iranian sovereignty.

Lord Peter Carrington, then-Foreign Secretary, was petitioned to intervene on behalf of the Kurds across Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, describing the plight of the Kurds as “dreadful” and decrying “mediaeval” suppression. Yet, Carrington’s official reply, drafted by the FCO, sought to deflect responsibility by portraying Iranian authorities as defenders of ethnic equality, claiming government actions targeted only insurgents with foreign backing. He warned that British intervention could backfire, potentially associating Kurdish demands with foreign powers and escalating tensions — a cynical admission of the West’s role in stoking unrest.

Meanwhile, the new Iranian constitution, adopted in December 1979, explicitly guarantees equal rights to all ethnic groups and rejects any discrimination based on color, race, language, or tribe. It also commits the Islamic Republic to supporting oppressed peoples worldwide, underscoring Iran’s dedication to unity and justice rather than division and foreign-imposed fragmentation.