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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.
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