Jalal Talabani passed away

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http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/031020173

[Anthea]

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/031020173

I am sorry for the sad lose of Jalal Talabani







RIP Jalal Talabani

[Anthea]

Iraq’s 1st non-Arab president, Jalal Talabani, dies in Germany



Former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani died in a Germany hospital on Tuesday after a period of health deterioration, according to Iraq’s State TV.

He suffered a stroke in 2012 which kept him out of politics, but returned back in 2014. In September, he flew to Germany for medical testing.

Talabani was born in 1933 near Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region. A former secretary-General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of Kurdistan’s largest political group, Talabani was elected in 2005, following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as the country’s first non-Arab president. He stepped down in 2014.

Talabani was one of Kurdistan’s pro-independence figures, and his death comes as the region has recently held a referendum on independence from Iraq which was voted positively by 92 of voters.

https://www.iraqinews.com/features/iraq ... s-germany/

[Anthea]

Veteran Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani dies



The Kurdish leader and former Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, has died at the age of 83, Iraqi state TV has said.

Talabani was a veteran of the Kurdish struggle for an independent state and founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in 1975.

In 2005, two years after the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, he became Iraq's first non-Arab president.

He stepped down in 2014, two years after suffering a stroke that led him to seek medical treatment in Germany.

Although the post of president is largely ceremonial, while in office he helped mediate disputes among the country's many political and religious factions.

Talabani's death was announced on Tuesday amid a major rift between the autonomous Kurdistan Region and the Arab-led central government in Baghdad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has demanded that the Kurdish authorities annul the referendum on independence that was held eight days ago and banned international flights to the region.

The Kurdistan Regional Government insists the vote, in which more than 90% of people backed secession from Iraq, was legitimate and accused Mr Abadi of "collective punishment".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41486847

Jalal Talabani spent his entire life fighting for an INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN

First as a freedom fighter in the the mountains and then as a political figure

A truly great man who will be missed but his courage and his love of Kurdistan is in the heart of every true Kurd

[Anthea]

A lamented Kurd:
Jalal Talabani’s mediating skills will be much missed

The Kurdish leader died on October 3rd, aged 83



FUNERALS can bring estranged parties together. And if anyone’s could heal the fissure between leaders in Baghdad and those in Iraq’s Kurdish enclave, that of Jalal Talabani should be the one. Mr Talabani died on October 3rd in Germany, aged 83. For 60 years “Mam”, or uncle, as Arabs and Kurds alike called him, made a career out of bridging differences.

After Saddam Hussein fell in 2003, he became Iraq’s first non-Arab president. A Sunni preacher’s son, he kept excellent relations with Shia politicians, particularly in Iran. He kissed both Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and America’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. For years he battled his Kurdish rival, Masoud Barzani, pitting his humble origins and leftist leanings against the Barzanis’ tribal heft. (In 1996 Mr Barzani even summoned Saddam’s tanks to invade Mr Talabani’s eastern fief, Sulaymaniyah.) But in recent years Mr Talabani, ever the conciliator, endorsed Mr Barzani’s extended presidency of the Kurdish enclave, healing that rift.

Claiming Mr Talabani as one of his own, Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, declared three days of mourning, and is planning what is likely to be a state funeral when his body arrives back from Germany. Kurdish officials are heading to Baghdad, hoping to repair relations while marching beside his cortège. Mr Abadi is refusing to talk until the Kurds invalidate their recent referendum, which they claim resulted in a 93% vote for independence.

There are signs that both sides are trying to de-escalate the crisis. Mr Abadi has relaxed financial restrictions and an international flight embargo on the Kurdish enclave. Kurds (and Mr Talabani’s body) still must fly via Baghdad, but airlines are expecting that requirement to be dropped soon, too.

Other threats still loom. Iranian tanks have deployed near Kurdistan’s eastern border. Turkey is discussing the return of Iraqi immigration officials to its crossings with the enclave, which would subject Kurdistan to Iraqi border controls for the first time in 25 years. But the tank movements are seen as posturing, and Turkey has not yet carried out its most substantial threat: to plug the oil pipeline that provides the bulk of the Kurds’ revenues.

Kurds are divided. Some say the reaction of the government in Baghdad proves its undying hostility. On October 3rd Arab Iraqi MPs prevented Kurdish ones from entering the parliament in Baghdad unless they renounced the referendum. Supporters of Nuri al-Maliki, a former prime minister, talk of a vote of no-confidence in Fuad Massoum, a Kurd who is Mr Talabani’s successor as Iraq’s president. If he goes, some predict Mr Maliki would bid for the largely titular post as a step towards regaining control of Iraq. “It’s like the Arab chauvinism of the Baath,” complains an ousted Kurdish official leaving Baghdad, referring to Saddam’s old party.

Other Kurds say the problems are self-inflicted. Three Kurdish parties, including Mr Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), have refused to join a new “political leadership” body set up by Mr Barzani to prepare for independence. Kurdish elections due next month might have shown where sympathies lay. But Mr Talabani’s five-year absence because of sickness has left the PUK embroiled in a succession crisis and ill-placed to campaign. His one-time deputy, Barham Salih, has split to found a new party. If only Mr Talabani were around to offer advice.

https://www.economist.com/news/middle-e ... ing-skills

[Anthea]

Jalal Talabani: Thousands mourn Iraqi Kurdish leader



Jalal Talabani, the former Iraqi president and a leading veteran of the struggle for Kurdish rights, is being laid to rest in northern Iraq.

His body was flown to his stronghold, the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, three days after he died in Germany.

His coffin was draped with the Kurdish flag, prompting one private Iraqi TV station to cut its coverage in protest.

Thousands of mourners crowded the streets as the coffin was taken from the airport to the city's great mosque.

The death of the 83-year-old comes at a sensitive time in relations between Kurdish leaders and Baghdad.

Last week, people living in northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence for the Kurdistan Region in a referendum, despite outrage in Baghdad, Iran and Turkey.

The coffin was received by a guard of honour and given a 21-gun salute, followed by the Iraqi national anthem, on the tarmac of Sulaimaniya airport.

It was then taken to the city's grand mosque.

Talabani's long-time rival, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan Massoud Barzani, sat between Talabani's widow Hero and Iraqi President Fuad Masum. Despite their long history of chequered relations, Mr Barzani this week described Mr Talabani as a "friend and a brother".

Other senior Baghdad officials also attended but Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi - who had urged Kurds to cancel the referendum and said he would refuse to engage in dialogue about the result - was absent.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was the most senior foreign official there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41526192

[Anthea]

Jalal Talabani wasn’t just a guerrilla fighter, he was a great leader to the Kurds

It’s now up to the Kurds to continue the legacy of the former President of Iraq and build a democratic and peaceful Kurdistan for all

On Tuesday, Jalal Talabani, the former president of Iraq and one of the Kurds' greatest leaders, passed away in Berlin. He was at the forefront of the Kurds' struggle for independence and freedom from oppression for over 50 years, founding the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in 1975 and becoming the first non-Arab president of Iraq in 2005.

My late great uncle fought Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime alongside Talabani in the 1980s and became a prominent member of the PUK. He was killed in action in 1985 but would have been proud to see all that Talabani achieved for the Kurds.

Talabani, affectionately known among Kurds as Mam Jalal (Kurdish for Uncle Jalal), once famously quipped that ‘’all [he] wanted was to be a university teacher’’. Instead, he became the face of the Kurdish struggle and dedicated his life to finding freedom for the Kurds. He opposed multiple oppressive regimes and was exiled from Iraq many times, never wavering in the face of overwhelming tyrannical force.

His success is largely attributed to his generous personality and his talent for outwitting rivals. He first joined the Kurdish independence movement in the 1940s as a teenager. A fervent Marxist at the time, he would moderate his views later in life.

Following Saddam's ousting in 2003, many feared a power vacuum could arise and lead to sectarian violence amongst the different factions in Iraq. When Talabani became president in 2005, his resolve and leadership brought people together. Where deep historical wounds would have made it nearly impossible for the Kurds, Sunni and Shia to work together, Talabani managed to build bridges between the three groups and strengthened a sense of national unity. Under his leadership, suicide bombings dropped substantially; Iraq seemed to be on the right path for the first time in decades.

While he devoted his life to the Kurdish people, he fought for all ethnic minorities in Iraq, including Yezidis, Assyrians, Turkmen and many more. He would often describe Iraq as a bouquet of diverse flowers, each having its place. During his time as the president of Iraq, Talabani protected minorities by opposing Islamist movements in Iraq in order to protect Iraqi Christians and women’s rights: "we have a tradition of more equality between men and women than they accept".

Talabani wasn’t just a revolutionary guerrilla fighter; he was also a great leader. During Saddam’s al-Anfal campaign, an estimated 100,000 Kurds died and a refugee crisis ensued. Saddam offered the Kurds amnesty, but said there would be no forgiveness for Talabani.

Yet it was Talabani who refused to back Saddam’s death penalty in 2006. He opposed the death penalty for Tariq Aziz, prime minister of Iraq under Saddam’s regime. Talabani pointed out that he could not support capital punishment as a socialist and neither could he kill an old and sick man. The late Christopher Hitchens would later say of this episode: ‘’Talabani's intervention in the Aziz case is a microcosm of what some of us hoped Iraq would one day become: a state of law instead of a state of blood.’’

After Kurdish forces took control of Iraqi Kurdistan in 1992 and held elections, he gave his most famous speech. In it he painted a path to freedom and sovereignty for the Kurds. His words reverberated throughout Kurdistan and were a great rallying cry.

His death doesn't come as a surprise as his health has continued to deteriorate over the years. Nevertheless, his death is tough to swallow and Kurds everywhere will mourn it. We will forever remember that he dedicated his life to the service of others. And yet, his death comes at a complex time in Kurdish history, facing complications after the recent referendum on independence, upcoming elections and unilateral opposition to the referendum from Turkey, Iran and Iraq.

Talabani’s passing is a huge loss for Kurdistan and Iraq but he will forever be part of our history. He remained true to his principles and beliefs to the very end. It’s now up to the Kurds to continue his legacy and build a democratic and peaceful Kurdistan for all. And while he didn’t become a university teacher, he did teach all Kurds how to be free.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ira ... 82851.html

[Anthea]

Talabani’s coffin with Kurdistan flag ‘insult’ to Iraq, MP left funeral in protest



A Shiite member of the Iraq parliament has described draping the coffin of the late Iraqi president Jalal Talabani with the Kurdish flag as an “insult” to the Iraqi government, something that pushed him to leave the funeral which took place on Friday in Sulaimani.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie said that the former president Talabani who died on Tuesday in Germany was a symbol for the unity of Iraq, and an example of Kurdish and Arab coexistence in the country.

Talabani’s coffin, draped with the Kurdistan flag, was greeted with a 21-gun salute at the Sulaimani airport on Friday while received by local and world leaders such as President Masoud Barzani, Iraqi President Fuad Masum, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, among others.

Mala Bakhtiyar, from Talabani’s party, told reporters on Saturday that those who left the funeral in protest “misunderstood” the situation. He said that Iraqi officials thought that the Kurdish government or the PUK intentionally left out the Iraqi flag.

“There was no intention,” Bakhtiyar said, explaining that event organizers deemed it unnecessary to also raise the Iraqi flag, an arrangement that Bakhtiyar said both the Kurdish government or the PUK did not want to influence.

He said that the real question in Iraq is not the flag issue, the important thing is “whether or not we are committed to the [Iraqi] constitution," a clear reference to the Kurdish argument that accuses the Iraqi government of having violated about one-third of the constitution.

The flags of Kurdistan and Iraq are now raised side by side near the grave of President Talabani, Bakhtiyar said, adding that the two flags will also feature at the place where they receive mourners in Sulaimani.

A Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament from Talabani's party, Shwan Dawudi, said earlier today that the Iraqi flag should have also been raised at the Friday service at Sulaimani airport since Talabani served as the president of Iraq for eight years, though there is no doubt that he was a Kurdish leader.

Iraq’s parliament speaker Salim al-Jaburi, the head of the ruling Shiite National Alliance Ammar al-Hakim, Iraq’s Interior Minister Qasim al-Araji on behalf of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and other Iraqi officials attended the service at the airport.

The criticism comes as several Iraqi TV stations stopped their coverage of the funeral when it became apparent that the coffin was covered with the Kurdish flag. One TV station said that they did so because the footage contained the “separation flag.”

Talabani’s death came about a week after the Kurdish people in the Kurdistan Region and the disputed or Kurdistani areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad voted with an overwhelming 92 percent to leave Iraq, despite opposition from the Iraqi state, regional countries, and almost the entire international community.

Rubaie, the Iraqi MP, said in a statement that Talabani was the president of Iraq, and therefore the fact that the coffin was not draped with the Iraqi flag is a “strong insult to the Iraqi government.”

He charged that President Barzani and other Kurdish officials engineered the event in a way that would undermine Iraq’s authority, adding that there was not even a single Iraqi flag at the airport, though Iraqi officials such as the parliament speaker were present at the funeral.

He then said in a video message that the “insult” was an act by what he described as “racist Kurds.”

He claimed that the event organizers played only the Kurdish national anthem and that the language in use was only Kurdish.

As part of the official ceremony, the organizers played both the Iraqi and Kurdish national anthems and the announcer used Kurdish, Arabic and English.

Rubaie, who is also a former Iraqi National Security Advisor from the ruling Shiite National Alliance, said that Iraqi officials were offended due to the way the seats were arranged with Iraqi officials seated behind the Kurdish officials, except for President Masum, who he said received the prime seat next to President Barzani because he is a “Kurd.”

President Masum and President Barzani laid wreaths of flowers in tribute to Talabani’s service, followed by Iraqi and foreign officials.

The Iraqi MP said that the Iraqi officials, including the representative of the Iraqi PM, should have laid wreaths of flowers before President Barzani since the “local authority” comes subordinate to the federal government.

“Masoud was very precise in his insult,” Rubaie charged, wondering why some of the Iraqi officials chose to be silent in this regard.

Qubad Talabani, who is also Kurdistan’s deputy Prime Minister, speaking on behalf of the Talabani family on Dabashan hill where his father was laid to rest thanked those who attended the funeral on Friday.

He said that his father was more concerned about his public life as a politician serving his people as opposed to his private life.

“He chose Kurdistan and chose the struggle of the people of Kurdistan over a normal life,” Qubad said, adding that they are proud of his service to the country.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/07102017

[Anthea]

I have spent much time looking at the write-ups on this great man and believe this to be one of the best and most factual:

Kurdish rebel leader Talabani sought Iraqi unity as president

Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who died on Tuesday aged 83, spent decades fighting for his people’s independence but then became president of Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and struggled to unite the deeply fractured country.

His death, in Germany, came barely a week after the Kurds of northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum condemned by Baghdad and Iraq’s powerful neighbors Turkey and Iran who fear it will destabilize the wider region.

A veteran of the Kurdish guerrilla movement, Talabani survived wars, exile and political infighting among the Kurds to become Iraq’s first non-Arab president in 2005, two years after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam.

The Iraqi presidency post-Saddam is a largely ceremonial post, but Talabani, forceful yet charming, proved a pivotal mediator among Iraq’s fractious Shi‘ite, Sunni and Kurdish parties, and he stayed on as head of state until 2014.

Despite his calls for Iraqi national unity, the man known affectionately among Kurds as ‘Mam’ -- or uncle -- was always a fierce champion of the Kurdish cause, fighting Saddam for decades and pushing for federalism to benefit the semi-autonomous region in the north.

While sectarianism and attacks by al Qaeda engulfed most of Iraq after 2003, triggering a civil war between Shi‘ites and Sunnis, the Kurdish north remained relatively stable and safe.

Iraq’s Kurds are now closer than ever to realizing their dream of independence after decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein, followed by years of tensions with the Baghdad government over oil and other issues.

However, Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - and his wife and companion in political struggle, Hero - voiced only lukewarm support for the Sept. 25 referendum. Talabani was too ill by then to comment publicly on the vote.

RIVALRY

The referendum was organized by Talabani’s longtime rival Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The split between Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Talabani’s PUK raises questions over the future of Iraqi Kurdish politics.

Talabani’s PUK, unlike Barzani, has traditionally good ties with Tehran. Iranian-backed Shi‘ite groups wield considerable power in Iraq.

Born in 1933, Talabani studied law at Baghdad University, joined the KDP in 1946 and by his mid-twenties was a member of the inner circle, a top lieutenant to the independence movement’s patriarch, Mullah Mustafa Barzani.

He split from the party and formed the PUK in 1974. A damaging rivalry developed with Barzani and his son, Massoud.

Talabani regarded himself as a modern, socialist and urban alternative to the tribal authority wielded by the elder Barzani and much of the PUK’s support comes from the urban elite.

Talabani’s harshest lesson came in 1988 when Iraq gassed Kurdish towns near the Iranian border during an Iranian-PUK offensive in the waning days of the Iran-Iraq war.

In the brutal seven-month Anfal campaigns, Kurds accused Iraqi forces of killing tens of thousands of men, women and children and relocating many more. Many remain missing, despite the discovery of mass graves, and no one knows for sure how many were “Anfalised” as Kurds call the killings and disappearances.

Most independent estimates put the figure at about 100,000. Many Kurdish leaders put it at more than 180,000.

Following their uprising against Baghdad after the 1991 Gulf war, Iraqi Kurds saw their first shot at self-rule go up in smoke when Talabani and Barzani sparred over control of a provisional north Iraq government elected in 1992.

That bickering escalated into a civil war that saw the KDP enlist Baghdad’s help against the Iranian-backed PUK.

A U.S.-sponsored truce backed with the threat of a diplomatic embargo took hold in 1998 and the two factions developed parallel, cooperating administrations.

Talabani’s speeches often reminded Kurds of their suffering at the hands of Saddam Hussein. But he and other Kurdish leaders faced unrest from Kurds more concerned with poor services in their towns and villages than the painful past. Talabani suffered a stroke in 2012 while still serving as Iraqi president and underwent lengthy medical treatment, mostly in Germany.

One of his sons, Qubad, is the current deputy prime minister of the KRG in northern Iraq.

Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Gareth Jones
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mide ... SKBN1CD07H