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Iraqi FM Zebari: a Kurd versed in Western
ways
20.5.2006
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BAGHDAD, May 20,
2006 (AFP) - Hoshyar Zebari, who stays on as
foreign minister in Iraq's new government, is a
Kurdish party stalwart well-versed in Western ways.
Zebari has held the job since a few months after the
April 2003 US-led invasion that overthrew Saddam
Hussein, chosen again as Iraq's top diplomat under
premier Ibrahim Jaafari in 2005.
A daunting challenge awaits the jowly, rotund figure
from one of the major Kurdish tribes who, true to
his roots, fought as a peshmerga against the
repression of Saddam's Baath party regime.
Zebari climbed up the hierarchy of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) run by his nephew, Massud
Barzani, being in charge of the KDP's foreign
relations for more than 10 years. |
Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqi foreign minister |
But unlike Barzani he does not wear traditional
Kurdish dress, rather the sharp suits of the West
where he has established a network of high-level
contacts.
A fluent English speaker, his language is also less
provocative than the occasional tirades of Barzani.
Zebari prefers a joke or even silence to turn round
an awkward situation and still get his message
across to the media.
In his almost three years in the job, Zebari's main
task has been to obtain economic, political and
security aid for his strife-torn country. His other
challenge has been to dissipate frequent crises with
Iraq's Arab neighbours.
Zebari has also accused Arab states of not doing
enough to help Iraq and Damascus of not helping in
the fight against Islamic militants.
As an ethnic Kurd, his reception among his Arab
neighbours has been at times chilly, and for many
Arabs he was the public face of the US-dominated
Iraq.
In press conferences outside Iraq, Arab journalists
often dropped their usual deference to public
figures and hurled openly hostile questions at
Zebari.
Born in 1953 at Aqrah, north of the Kurdish capital
Arbil, Zebari has a degree in political science from
Jordan and a masters in social development from the
University of Essex.
As a student in England in the late 1970s, he became
secretary general of the society of Kurdish students
in Europe, making contact particularly with
left-leaning political groups.
Zebari returned to Iraqi Kurdistan after the onset
of the 1980-1988 war with Iran. The Kurdish
rebellion was growing and he joined the peshmerga
while continuing to look after KDP interests in
Europe, as well as in Syria and Lebanon.
As Saddam's forces cracked down on the Kurds,
including the notorious 1988 gas attack that killed
at least 5,000 Kurds at Halabja, Zebari went to
London to alert international opinion.
He became more widely known for promoting the
Kurdish cause during the 1991 Gulf War, which closed
with a rebellion put down ferociously by Baghdad's
army before US-British airpower provided protection.
The minister has in the past decade or so moved
between London and Washington, where he kept an
office, meeting high-ranking officials from NATO and
the Pentagon.
Zebari returned to Iraqi Kurdistan in February 2003
as war looked inevitable and then moved to Baghdad
at the end of April after the rout of Baathist
forces.
AFP
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