Iran's Kurdistan province "safest" in country: interior minister

TEHRAN, Oct 24 (AFP) Iran's interior minister said in remarks published Thursday that Kurdistan province was the "safest in the country", just days after a rebel group in the area was blamed for killing a Revolutionary Guard officer.

The killing last week of Saleh Sharifi in Iranian Kurdistan was blamed on the separatist Kurdish group Komala, which has been largely inactive since 1986 after being crushed by security forces.

The minister, Abdolvahed Musavi-Lari, denied the group had returned to militant activities, saying "there is no tension in Kurdistan," and that the province is "the safest in the country", in remarks published in the Seday-e Edalat daily.

Musavi-Lari did not comment on the murder, though government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the province's former governor, said on Wednesday an investigation was underway.

Iran is worried about the revival of separatist sentiments among its six million strong Kurdish minority in the event of a US attack on neighboring Iraq, which could see Kurds in northern Iraq gain independence or autonomy from Baghdad.

The Komala and the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran are the two main Kurdish rebel groups active within the Islamic republic.

After briefly allying themselves with the Islamic regime after the 1979 revolution, the rebels were ruthlessly crushed by the security forces, particularly the Revolutionary Guards, in the 1980s.