Jalal Talabani

Overview

Jalal Talabani was a Kurdish political leader who founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in 1975 and led it for 42 years. He became president of Iraq in April 2005, following the fall of Saddam Hussein, while remaining leader of his party. His career joined two arenas of politics: the struggle over Kurdish leadership and the effort to govern Iraq after Saddam’s dictatorship. The PUK drew much of its support from the political and student communities of Sulaymaniyah. Its principal rival was the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led in later decades by Masoud Barzani. Talabani cooperated with the Barzanis at some points and fought their party at others.

Early life

Talabani’s early political career developed within the KDP. In 1964, he and Ibrahim Ahmed broke with the leadership of Mustafa Barzani, objecting to Barzani’s concentration of power within the party. Talabani returned to the KDP in the early 1970s. After Barzani’s revolt against the Iraqi government collapsed in 1975, Talabani split from the party again and established the PUK with other Kurdish leaders. He announced its formation from Damascus. The new party offered a separate center of Kurdish politics, rooted especially in Sulaymaniyah, and began a rivalry with the KDP that would shape Kurdistan for decades.

Career

Talabani’s regional alliances shifted as Kurdish parties sought room to organize across Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. He and Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), moved to Damascus in 1979. Öcalan sought Talabani’s cooperation in establishing bases in Syria, where Hafez al-Assad granted both men certain freedoms. In 1982, Öcalan ended his alliance with Talabani to gain Masoud Barzani’s favor. After the PKK’s pact with the KDP collapsed in 1986, Barzani joined forces with Talabani against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Öcalan then renewed cooperation with the PUK. A PKK–PUK accord followed in 1988, but lasted only one year.

Following Saddam’s fall, Talabani became Iraq’s first president of the new political order in April 2005. His position gave a Kurdish leader a central role in the state whose former dictator he had opposed. Talabani continued to lead the PUK during his presidency, connecting national office to a party whose strength depended on Kurdish regional politics. His associate Barham Salih also held senior office in Iraq and later headed the Kurdistani List, an electoral coalition of the PUK and KDP.

That coalition retained a majority in Kurdistan’s regional parliament after the July 25, 2009 election, despite substantial losses. Its representation appeared to fall from 89 seats to roughly 60. Talabani’s PUK suffered greater losses than the KDP, including a substantial loss of votes in Sulaymaniyah to the Change party, a PUK breakaway. Internal disagreements had already obstructed party decisions: a planned 2008 transfer of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s prime ministership to the PUK was cancelled largely because its leaders could not agree on a candidate. Figures discussed as possible successors to Talabani included his son Qubad, Barham Salih, and veteran party leaders.

Ideology and statements

Talabani led a PUK associated with a relatively secular political tradition. In a 2001 discussion of Islamist movements in Kurdistan, he pointed to cultural traditions, including greater equality between women and men, that he considered at odds with those movements’ programs. As president, he addressed religious freedom and minority concerns during Iraq’s constitutional transition. In September 2005, Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari met Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly to discuss concerns about the constitution. Talabani also discussed religious freedom in Iraq with Pope Benedict XVI in November 2005.

Talabani called for restraint when sectarian violence threatened Iraq. After the February 2006 bombing of Samarra’s Askariya Shrine, a major Shia religious site, he condemned the attack and called for calm. His response came amid retaliatory violence and mounting tension between religious communities. Together, his meetings with Christian leaders and his public appeal after the shrine bombing showed how his presidency engaged questions of minority rights and sectarian coexistence.

Role in attacks or conflicts

The PUK and KDP fought for power during the Kurdish civil war of the 1990s. Fighting that began in 1994 divided their areas of control and weakened opposition to Saddam. Talabani and PUK members took refuge in Iran during the conflict. The Iranian regime reinforced Talabani’s position: its troops, intelligence personnel, and Badr Corps fighters operated in PUK territory in 1996 and provided support and training to his forces. Iranian troops also deployed there in substantial numbers that year. Barzani, meanwhile, sought Saddam’s help against the PUK. Iraqi Republican Guard forces entered Erbil in 1996, delivering a severe blow to Talabani’s forces and the wider Iraqi opposition.

These alignments exposed the costs of the PUK–KDP rivalry. Talabani and Barzani had combined forces against Saddam after their earlier disputes, yet their parties later fought each other while neighboring powers intervened. Their subsequent Kurdistani List coalition restored electoral cooperation, but did not erase competition over offices, votes, and influence. The PUK’s losses in Sulaymaniyah and its difficulty selecting a candidate for prime minister showed that Talabani’s authority did not settle every internal dispute.

Death or current status

Talabani fell ill in 2012. His reduced role weakened the PUK’s position as the KDP gained ground and intensified the question of who could hold his party together. In April 2017, Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian regime’s Quds Force, sought to persuade PUK leaders to oppose a referendum on Kurdistan’s political future. Talabani died in early October 2017, shortly after the independence referendum. Iranian regime foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attended his funeral in Sulaymaniyah on October 6. Soleimani visited Talabani’s grave in mid-October as tensions over the referendum and Kirkuk grew.

Legacy

Talabani left a party with a durable political base but no agreed successor with comparable authority. His son Bafel Talabani and nephew Lahur Talabani became PUK co-leaders in February 2020. Their initial cooperation was intended to counter KDP gains that had accelerated during Jalal Talabani’s illness. It gave way to a leadership struggle as Bafel moved to remove Lahur from power. The dispute underscored how strongly the PUK had depended on its founder to manage competing figures and preserve unity.

Talabani’s legacy also extends beyond party succession. His 1975 break with the KDP created Kurdistan’s other major governing party; his changing alliances reflected the pressures Kurdish leaders faced from neighboring states and Saddam’s Iraq; and his presidency placed a Kurdish figure at the head of Iraq after Saddam’s fall. The PUK–KDP rivalry, periods of cooperation, and disputes within the Talabani family remained central to Kurdish politics after his death.