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The Secrets of Mustafa Barzani in KGB
Archives 24.8.2006
By Dr.Kamal Said Qadir, Vienna-Austria - Opinion -
The views expressed in this article are those of the
author and do not necessarily represent the views of
KURDNET
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Mula Mustafa Barzani,
the legendary Kurdish leader was a KGB-agent,
codenamed "RAIS", and the Kurdish armed revolution
started by Barzani Sep.11,1961 was in reality a KGB
cover action to destabilize Western interests in the
Middle East and put additional pressure on the
Kassem government of Iraq.
Whoever dares to mention these facts publicly in
Kurdistan, his fate will be surely unknown. The
least punishment he may receive would be enforced
disappearance or even murder by sophisticated means,
and the whole story of KGB-Barzani ties will be
dismissed as a reckless defamation by the ruling
Barzani family.
Unfortunately for Barzani family, these facts are
not a creation of some individuals, but contents of
KGB-documents became recently accessible for
scholars and public, or found their way to the West
with defected KGB-officers after the collapse of the
Soviet Union. |
Dr Kamal Said Qadir, Austrian citizen, an
international legal expert, writer and human rights
activist |
There are two main documentary sources on KGB-Barzani
ties, this paper relies on. The first are the
archives of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, which also contain the
correspondence between KGB and the Central
Committee. The most important documents mentioned
here in this article goes back to 1961, the peak of
the cold war.
And the second sources are the so called ``Mitrokhin
archives``, which were smuggled to the West by the
defected KGB-officer Mitrokhin after the collapse of
the Soviet Union.
In addition to the KGB-archives, this paper also
relies on the memoirs written by former
KGB-officers, where references also being made to
Barzani and the Kurdish conflict. Here are the
memoirs of the former KGB-general Sudoplatov, who
was the head of the ``SMERSH``, a special department
within the Soviet Security Services, responsible for
special operations broad, of great importance.
There are also some scholars who conducted valuable
research on KGB history using publicly accessible
KGB-archives. The most important research paper I
was able to find in this connection was the research
paper delivered by Vladislav M. Zubok, a visiting
scholar of the National Security Archives in
Washington D.C. This paper is accessible online
under (
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=278
).
The aim of the current paper on Barzani-KGB ties is
simply the search for the truth in the public
interest. The Barzani family has established a
brutal and corrupt feudal political system in
Iraqi-Kurdistan under the pretext that this family
had led the Kurdish revolution. It is simply time to
tell them the truth and remember them that the Kurds
are freedom loving people and will never accept
feudal rule. The Barzani family has misused the
trust of Kurdish people and became increasingly an
oligarchic family, the main aim of which is
self-enrichment by illegal means and the monopoly of
power by the members of this family. Murder,
torture, abductions and intimidation are among the
main methods of the family to silence the opponents
by of the family. But apparently, such methods do
not work well anymore in the new Iraq.
My own abduction by the
Parastin, the secret service of the Barzani family
Oct.26,2005 in Erbil-Kurdistan for publishing some
articles criticising the corrupt rule of the Barzani
family and my subsequent release under international
pressure is a further evidence that the arbitrary
powers of the family are decreasing.
The great international support for my case was
based on the simple fact that the truth should not
be silenced.
And therefore I see it as my duty to continue
searching for the truth.
Barzani and KGB, Old
Relations
After the collapse of the Kurdish republic of
Mahabad Dec.1946, Mustafa Barsani made his way to
the Soviet borders with several hundred of his men.
After arriving in the Soviet Union he received a
great attention by the Soviet leadership and Soviet
security services, who wanted to use the Kurds for
their own ends.
The first period of Barzani life in the Soviet Union
and his political activities would have probably
remained secret without the memoirs of the
KGB-general Pavel Sudolatov, who later became the
head of the ``SMERSH``. Sudoplatov writes that he
had met Barzani for the first time in Baku, shortly
after the arrival of Barzani in the Soviet Union in
1947, with the aim to study the opportunities to use
him to destabilize Western interests in the Middle
East. Barzani and his men were to receive arms and
military training in order to be sent back to Iraq
for this purpose, writes Sudoplatov.
Mula Mustafa Barzani must have been of extra
ordinary importance for the Soviet leadership and
Soviet security services, as he was cultivated by P.
Sudoplatov, one of the most important figures within
the Soviet Secret Services. Sudoplatov mentions in
his memoirs that he has been responsible for
assassination of Trotsky on Stalin’s order and for
Soviet atomic espionage, which led to the building
of the Soviet atom bomb.
Charging Sudoplatov with negotiations with Mustafa
Barzani is an evidence of the great expectation the
Soviet leadership had from Barzani. But Sudoplatov
was apparently not the only Soviet secret service
officer to deal with Barzani. Sudoplatov mentions
other officers, who succeeded him in dealing with
Barzani. Sudoplatov meets Barzani for the second
time in 1952 to negotiate with him on military
training without mentioning any agreement reached
among them. But Sudoplatov meets Barzani in 1953 in
a military academy in Moscow, where both of them,
Sudopatov and Barzani undergo military training.
Barzani was apparently being prepared for a special
task abroad.
Sudoplatov reveals in his memoirs that Barzani told
him then that the ties between his family and Russia
are hundred years old and that his family had
appealed to Russia for help before and received arms
and ammunition from Russia sixty times. There are
indeed other confidential reports on a visit to
Russia made by the Sheikh Abdul Salam, the Sheikh of
Barzan before the First World War There are no
further reports available to me about the Barzani
Russian ties before the WWI.
The nature of relations between Mustafa Barzani and
Soviet secret services during the period of
1947-1958 remains till now widely secret with the
exception of the Sudoplatov memoirs.
Also Mitrokhin archives and the publicly accessible
KGB-archives make no mention of this period, but do
deliver essential inform on the Barzani-KGB ties
after 1958.
From Mitrokhin archives we learn that the KGB has
given Barzani the codename ``RAIS``, and both of the
archives, the Mitrokhin archives and the
KGB-archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU
reveal the big secret behind the Kurdish September
revolution of 1961 led by Mustafa Barsani.
According to these archives, this revolution was in
reality not a real revolution but one of cover
actions of KGB to destabilize Western interests in
the Middle East.
Shelepin, the KGB-chief in the 1960s, sent in 1961 a
memorandum to Khrushchev containing plans "to cause
uncertainty in government circles of the USA,
England, Turkey, and Iran about the stability of
their positions in the Middle and Near East." He
offered to use old KGB connections with the chairman
of Democratic party of Kurdistan, Mulla Mustafa
Barzani, "to activate the movement of the Kurdish
population of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey for creation of
an independent Kurdistan that would include the
provinces of aforementioned countries." Barzani was
to be provided with necessary aid in arms and money.
"Given propitious developments," noted Shelepin with
foresight, "it would become advisable to express the
solidarity of Soviet people with this movement of
the Kurds."
"The movement for the creation of Kurdistan," he
predicted, "will evoke serious concern among Western
powers and first of all in England regarding [their
access to] oil in Iraq and Iran, and in the United
States regarding its military bases in Turkey. All
that will create also difficulties for [Iraqi Prime
Minister Gen. Abdul Karim] KASSIM who has begun to
conduct a pro-Western policy, especially in recent
time." Shelepin also proposed an initiative to
entice Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, a
Third World leader avidly courted by both East and
West, into throwing his support behind the Kurds.
Shelepin suggested informing Nasser "through
unofficial channels" that, in the event of a Kurdish
victory, Moscow "might take a benign look at the
integration of the non-Kurdish part of Iraqi
territory with the UAR"--the United Arab Republic, a
short-lived union of Egypt and Syria reflecting
Nasser's pan-Arab nationalism--"on the condition of
NASSER's support for the creation of an independent
Kurdistan." ( Shelepin to Khrushchev, 29 July 1961,
in St.-191/75gc, 1 August 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis
13, delo 81, ll. 131-32) (see Zubok, 21).
When a Kurdish rebellion indeed broke out in Iraqi
Kurdistan in September 1961, the KGB quickly
responded with additional proposals to exploit the
situation. KGB Deputy Chairman Peter Ivashutin
proposed--"In accord with the decision of the CC
CPSU...of 1 August 1961 on the implementation of
measures favouring the distraction of the attention
and forces of the USA and her allies from West
Berlin, and in view of the armed uprisings of the
Kurdish tribes that have begun in the North of
Iraq"--to: 1) use the KGB to organize pro-Kurdish
and anti-Kassim protests in India, Indonesia,
Afghanistan, Guinea, and other countries; 2) have
the KGB meet with Barzani to urge him to "seize the
leadership of the Kurdish movements in his hands and
to lead it along the democratic road," and to advise
him to "keep a low profile in the course of this
activity so that the West did not have a pretext to
blame the USSR in meddling into the internal affairs
of Iraq"; and 3) assign the KGB to recruit and train
a "special armed detachment (500-700 men)" drawn
from Kurds living in the USSR in the event that
Moscow might need to send Barzani "various military
experts (Artillerymen, radio operators, demolition
squads, etc.)" to support the Kurdish uprising. ( P.
Ivashutin to CC CPSU, 27 September 1961,
St.-199/10c, 3 October 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis
13, delo 85, ll. 1-4). (see Zubok,21)
What Ivashutin did not know, was the fact that the
West already had information on Barzani special ties
with the Soviet Union. The U.S. officials had noted
with concern the possibility ``that Barzani might be
useful to Moscow. In an October 1958 cable to the
State Department three months after a military coup
brought Kassim to power, the U.S. ambassador to
Iraq, Waldemar J. Gallman, stated that "Communists
also have potential for attack [on Iraqi Prime
Minister Kassim-ed.] on another point through
returned Kurdish leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani. He
spent last eleven years in exile in Soviet Union.
His appeal to majority of Iraqi Kurds is strong and
his ability [to] disrupt stability almost endless.
Thus we believe that today greatest potential threat
to stability and even existence of Qassim's [Kassim's]
regime lies in hands of Communists." See Gallman to
Department of State, 14 October 1958, in U.S.
Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1958-1960, Vol. XII (Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office, 1993), 344-46 (see Zubok,
21).
So became the Kurdish conflict an instrument in the
hands of Moscow to exercise pressure on successive
Iraqi regimes. According to Mitrokhin archives, the
KGB sent Yevgeni Primakov, codenamed ``MAKS`` to
Iraq in the 1960s under the cover of a journalist.
Yevgeni Primakov was to play later a leading role in
the Kurdish question, especially in the conclusion
of the autonomy agreement between the Kurdistan
Democratic Party and the Iraqi regime March 1970.
The Baath regime has to accept the Soviet conditions
in return for the mediation, since the Iraqi army
was completely exhausted by fighting with the Kurds.
Iraqi regime has to ease pressure on the Iraqi
Communist Party and establish close ties with the
Soviet Union.
After the March agreement the Iraqi regime gained
strength with Soviet support and began to obstruct
the implementation of the March agreement. And the
Soviet Union, having successfully used the Kurdish
card to influence the Iraqi foreign policy, turned
its back to the Kurds. Barzani in return moved
closer to CIA, Mossad and Savakis. The Iraqi-Soviet
honey moon lasted till the collapse of the Kurdish
uprising after it was betrayed by the Western allies
and Iran in 1975. After this date, the Iraqi regime
resumed its oppressive politics towards the Iraqi
Communist Party and began to come closer to the
West.
And the Soviet Union resumed its use for the Kurdish
card.
Since that time the history has repeated itself
several times and the Barzani family has often
changed the fronts between, KGB, CIA and Mossad. The
drama is continuing.
Dr Kamal Said Qadir, Austrian citizen, an
international legal expert, writer and human rights
activist, Dr. Kamal can be contacted at
a7825836@unet.univie.ac.at
Note: The views expressed in this article are those
of the author and do not necessarily represent the
views of KURDNET portal
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