Jalal Talabani

Jalal Talabani جەلال تاڵەبانی جلال طالباني
President of Iraq
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 May 2005
Prime Minister	Ibrahim al-Jaafari Nouri al-Maliki
Preceded by	Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer (Acting)
President of the Governing Council of Iraq
In office 1 November 2003 – 30 November 2003
Leader	Paul Bremer
Preceded by	Ayad Allawi
Succeeded by	Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
Personal details
Born	(1933-11-12) 12 November 1933 Silemani, Iraq
Political party	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
Spouse	Hero Ibrahim Ahmed

Jalal Talabani (Kurdish: جەلال تاڵەبانی , Arabic: جلال طالباني Jalāl Tālabānī born November 12, 1933) is the current President of Iraq and a leading Kurdish politician. He is the first non-Arab president of Iraq. Talabani is the founder and secretary general of one of the main Kurdish political parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He was a prominent member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council, which was established following the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Talabani has been an advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy in Iraq for more than 50 years.

Life

He was born in 1933 in in South Kurdistan. He descends from the Talabani tribe that has produced many leading social figures.

His youngest son, Qubad Talabani, is the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government in the United States.

Education

He received his elementary and intermediate school education in Koya (Koysanjak) and his high school education in Erbil and Kirkuk. He is fluent in Kurdish, Arabic , Persian, and English. Talabani has a record of lifelong activism and leadership in the Kurdish and Iraqi causes. In 1946, at the age of 13 he formed a secret Kurdish student association.

Rights for Kurds

When in September 1961, the Kurdish revolution for the rights of the Kurds in Iraq was declared against the Baghdad government of Abdul Karim Qassem, Talabani took charge of the Kirkuk and Silemani battle fronts and organized and led separatist movements in Mawat, Rezan and the Karadagh regions. In March 1962, he led a coordinated offensive that brought about the liberation of the district of Sharbazher from Iraqi government forces. When not engaged in fighting in the early and mid 1960s, Talabani undertook numerous diplomatic missions, representing the Kurdish leadership at meetings in Europe and the Middle East.

The Kurdish separatist movement collapsed in March 1975 after Iran ended their support in exchange for a border agreement with Iraq. This agreement was the 1975 Algiers Agreement, where Iraq gave up claims to the Shatt al-Arab waterway and Khuzestan, which later became the basis for the Iran-Iraq war. Believing it was time to give a new direction to the Kurdish separatists and to the Kurdish society, Talabani, with a group of Kurdish intellectuals and activists, founded the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Yekiaiti Nishtimani Kurdistan). In 1976, he began organizing an armed campaign for Kurdish independence inside Iraq. During the 1980s, Talabani sided with Iran and led a Kurdish struggle from bases inside Iraq until the crackdown against Kurdish separatist from 1987 to 1988.

In 1991, he helped inspire a renewed effort for Kurdish independence. He negotiated a ceasefire with the Iraqi Ba'athist government that saved the lives of many Kurds and worked closely with the US, UK, France and other countries to set up the safe haven in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1992 the Kurdistan Regional Government was founded.

Talabani has pursued a negotiated settlement to the internecine problems plaguing the Kurdish movement, as well as the larger issue of Kurdish rights in the current regional context. He works closely with other Kurdish politicians as well as the rest of the Iraqi opposition factions. In close coordination with Massoud Barzani, Talabani and the Kurds played a key role as a partner of the US-Coalition in the invasion of Iraq.

Iraq War

Talabani was a member of the Iraqi Governing Council that negotiated the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), Iraq's interim constitution. The TAL governed all politics in Iraq and the process of writing and adopting the final constitution.

Presidency

Jalal Talabani with President Barack Obama during a visit to Camp Victory, Iraq, April 7, 2009.

Talabani was elected President of Iraq on April 6, 2005 by the Iraqi National Assembly and sworn in to office the following day. On April 22, 2006, Talabani began his second term as President of Iraq, becoming the first President elected under the country's new Constitution. Currently, his office is part of the Presidency Council of Iraq. Nawshirwan Mustafa was Talabani's deputy until Mustafa resigned in 2006 and formed a media company called Wusha.

President Jalal Talabani visited the Cambridge Union Society UK, on 11 May 2007. The visit itself was organized by the then President of Cambridge Union Society, Ali Al-Ansari. In an interview, during the visit, Jalal Talabani described Tony Blair as a 'hero' for helping secure Iraq's freedom.

External links

• Kurdistan Regional Government