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A landmark for the
Kurds
By Kathleen Ridolfo
The Iraqi National Assembly elected
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) head Jalal
Talabani to be the country's new president on
Wednesday. Talabani's rise is a milestone in the
history of Iraq's long-oppressed Kurds. He is the
first Kurd ever to fill the seat and has worked
hard to maintain Kurdish autonomy within a federal
Iraq.
A Kurdish patriot, Talabani had a
history of organization and - at times -
confrontation to oppose the regime of former Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein. But he has worked alongside
fellow Kurd Masud Barzani to maintain autonomy
within a postwar federal Iraq.
"It is a
right of the Kurdish people to demand that the
region of Kurdistan, as it is known in terms of
geography and history, become the region over
which the Kurdish people would exert their federal
rule," Talabani told RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq on
February 24. "We believe that these [currently]
existing problems can also be solved by consensus
and dialogue, in a brotherly political way. There
is no problem in Iraq that would be unsolvable, in
our opinion."
Talabani has played a
crucial role in the postwar administration of
Iraq, holding a seat on the US-appointed Iraqi
Governing Council and acting as rotating president
on the council in November 2003.
A constant
proponent of reconciliation between Iraq's
divergent groups, Talabani told fellow
parliamentarians at the National Assembly's first
session on March 16, "A serious patriotic task
stands before all of us: It is re-establishing the
previous Iraqi national unity on the principles of
free choice, consensus, and national
reconciliation between Iraqis of good will who are
against dictatorship and terror."
Talabani
held no role in the interim Iraqi government, but
remained a key politician. He headed the Kurdistan
Coalition List's ballot for seats on the
transitional National Assembly, with aspirations
of being elected by the assembly as Iraq's
transitional president.
Early political
ambitions
For Talabani, the Iraqi
presidential post represents the culmination of a
political career that he launched even before he
reached adulthood.
Talabani was born in
1933 in the Kurdish village of Kelkan. He joined
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) headed by
Mustafa Barzani - reportedly at the early age of
14 - and was elected to the KDP's central
committee in 1951, while earning a law degree from
Baghdad University.
He later became a
member of the KDP's politburo and was a key figure
in the 1961 Kurdish revolt against the government
of Abd al-Karim Qasim. He participated in the
delegation that held talks with the government of
president Abd al-Salam Arif's in 1963. Talabani
left the KDP in 1966 and later founded the PUK
from Damascus in 1975.
The PUK and KDP had
a contentious relationship, battling each other
from 1978 until 1986. The PUK was also at odds
with Saddam Hussein's government, but eventually
established a ceasefire with Saddam and entered
into talks in 1983. Those talks broke down in 1985
and full-scale fighting resumed, with pro-Iraqi
militiamen killing Talabani's brother and two
nieces.
Iran facilitated a reconciliation
between the PUK and KDP in 1986, with both groups
receiving financial support from the Iranian
regime.
Birth of the Kurdistan
Front
In 1987, Talabani and Barzani, along
with a number of smaller Kurdish groups, formed
the Kurdistan Front. Kurds effectively gained
control over Iraqi Kurdistan, but that control was
short-lived.
Saddam retaliated and, from
March to September 1988, his army launched the
infamous Anfal campaign, killing, deporting or
gassing hundreds of thousands of Kurds. The
PUK-controlled areas bore the brunt of the
attacks, and Talabani sought refuge in Iran.
Following the 1991 Gulf War, Kurds
launched an uprising against the Iraqi regime. In
March, Saddam's troops invaded Kurdistan, driving
Kurds north into the mountains. By April,
coalition forces had established a safe haven for
the Kurds along the Iraqi border, while Talabani
and Barzani entered into autonomy talks with
Saddam's regime. The PUK and KDP continued to
battle the regime throughout most of the year.
Talabani and Barzani joined the Iraqi
opposition in 1992, and later that year the PUK
and KDP agreed on the formation of a Kurdistan
National Assembly. Elections were held, with the
groups effectively splitting control of the
parliament. Both the PUK and KDP retained their
own peshmerga fighting forces and
administration over their areas in eastern and
western Kurdistan.
Contentious Kurdish
relations
Civil war broke out between the
two sides in 1994. By 1996, Barzani was receiving
help from Baghdad in battling the PUK, prompting
Talabani to brand Barzani a traitor for enlisting
Saddam's help. The Kurds eventually reached a
peace agreement in 1998, and convened the first
joint session of the Kurdish parliament in six
years in October 2002.
Just weeks ahead of
the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, the
PUK and KDP created a joint higher leadership
under Talabani and Barzani's chairmanship.
Talabani has worked with Barzani to maintain
Kurdish autonomy within a federal Iraq since the
US-led invasion of the country.
"We think
that Kurds, Shi'ite Arabs and Sunni Arabs have to
agree on the new structure of the new Iraq, on the
writing of the constitution, on the distribution
of the main posts," Talabani told RFE/RL's Radio
Free Iraq on February 24. "Without this consensus,
there could be no viable and stable Iraq and
governments."
With his election to the
post of president, Talabani has been offered a
chance to further those goals - and play a key
role in Iraq's stabilization and reconstruction.
Copyright (c) 2005, RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW,
Washington DC 20036. |
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