"The split from the party was peacefully done and now we are trying not to get dragged into any disputes," said Abdallah Hassan Zadeh from his base in Koi Sanjaq, east of the main Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil.

The KDPI, founded in 1945, is the largest Iranian Kurdish rebel group and has several centers around northern Iraq, including in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region.

"The two-year-long dispute inside the party was based on our demands for reform and efforts to come up with a collective leadership," said Zadeh.

"They did not meet our demands, resulting in a split."

A KDPI statement said only: "After a number of meetings between the two sides, we could find no way to work together and so they announced their secession."

The party was founded in western Iran during a brief flurry of Kurdish nationalism under Soviet protection following World War II but was swiftly oppressed by the Tehran regime.

After a short spell of toleration following the 1979 revolution, the party came in for renewed repression by the Islamic regime and exiled leaders were assassinated by suspected regime agents in 1989 and again in 1993.

The Kurds are spread over Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, and Kurdish rebel groups from all four countries have long sought refuge with ethnic kin across international frontiers.