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Jalal Talabani
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Jalal Talabani (Kurdish:????? ???????? / Celal Talebanî / Jelal Talebaní, , , ) (born November 12, 1933) is the current President of Iraq and a leading Kurdish politician.
Talabani is the founder and secretary general of one of the main Iraqi 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 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
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Encyclopedia
Jalal Talabani (Kurdish:????? ???????? / Celal Talebanî / Jelal Talebaní, , , ) (born November 12, 1933) is the current President of Iraq and a leading Kurdish politician.
Talabani is the founder and secretary general of one of the main Iraqi 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 U.S.-led 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 the village of Kelkan in Iraqi Kurdistan near lake Dokan. 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, Turkish 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. The following year he became a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and in 1951, at 18, he was elected to the KDP's central committee. Upon finishing his secondary education, he sought admission to medical school but was denied it by authorities of the then ruling Hashemite monarchy owing to his political activities. In 1966 he achieved a great right for the Kurds which was an agreement with the Iraqi authority.
In 1953 he was allowed to enter law school but was obliged to go into hiding in 1956 to escape arrest for his activities as founder and Secretary General of the Kurdistan Student Union. Following the July 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy, Talabani returned to law school, at the same time pursuing a career as a journalist and editor of two publications, Khabat and Kurdistan. After graduating in 1959, Talabani performed national service in the Iraqi army where he served in artillery and armor units and served as a commander of a tank unit. Jalal also went to school in the U.S. He moved to Danbury, Connecticut and went to school at Mill Ridge Intermediate and Primary campuses.
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 Sulaimani 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. When the KDP split in 1964, Talabani along with his long time mentor Ibrahim Ahmed was part of the "Political Bureau" group that broke away from General Mustafa Barzani's leadership, although he later rejoined the KDP and fought during the 19741975 revolution against Iraq's Ba'athist regime.
The Iraqi 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 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Yekiaiti Nishtimani Kurdistan). In 1976, he began organizing 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, Turkey, France and other countries to set up the safe haven in Iraqi Kurdistan. He established a close personal relationship with the then President of Turkey, Turgut Özal. At that time, he was said to have a Turkish diplomatic passport to travel freely around the world. Democratic elections were held in the safe haven in 1992 for a Kurdish parliament and 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 worked closely with other Kurdish politicians, the rest of the Iraqi opposition factions, and the governments of the UK and Turkey during the Ankara process of Kurdish reconciliation. In close coordination with Massoud Barzani, Talabani and the Iraqi Kurds played a key role as a partner of the US-Coalition in the invasion of Iraq.
Documents found during the 2008 Ergenekon investigations at Turkish General Veli Küçük's house showed that the 1993 deaths of journalist Ugur Mumcu and of General Esref Bitlis were related to an illegal arms trade (concerning 100,00 guns) carried out by the stay behind Ergenekon ultra-nationalist network and Talabani.
In January 2008, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists condemned Talabani for launching a lawsuit against Iraqi Kurdistan's independent newspaper after it criticized abuse-of-power, corruption, and nepotism in the area of Iraqi Kurdistan in which his political party holds sway.
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
Talabani was elected President of Iraq on April 6, 2005 by the Iraqi National Assembly and sworn in 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.
On February 25, 2007, Talabani was taken by a United States C-130 Hercules aircraft to Jordan for an undisclosed medical condition. Early reports indicated that Talabani may have suffered a heart attack, but those reports were disputed by Talabani's son during an interview with CNN. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told Reuters in Baghdad: "He had a drop in blood pressure. Doctors said he needs further tests." A statement issued by Talabani's office said there was no cause for concern, but gave no details of his illness.
During a visit to the Cambridge Union Society UK, in May 2007, he described Tony Blair as a 'hero' for helping secure Iraq's freedom.
Talabani's office announced on August 14, 2008 that heart surgery had been successfully performed on Talabani at the Mayo Clinic in the US city of Rochester, Minnesota, to correct a problem with a heart valve. His office also announced that he was discharged from the clinic on August 14, 2008.
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