Records trace Colonel Aziz Yamulki through the 1937 conspiracy, the officer split of 1940, consular service and an unrealized proposal for external support in 1951.

Black-and-white portrait of Mustafa Yamulki with a moustache, tall dark hat, decorated military uniform, braided belt and gloves held beside a sword
Mustafa Yamulki, Abdul Aziz’s father, in a photograph dated to the 1910s by the Commons record. This family-context portrait is not a picture of Abdul Aziz. Photographer unidentified; public domain. [6] Photo: unidentified photographer, 1910s; Wikimedia Commons / Sara Distribution, public domain.

An officer and a political family

Abdul Aziz, also called Aziz Yamulki, was a Kurdish officer in Iraq’s army and later a diplomat. Walid M. S. Hamdi’s archival study lists him as a colonel among the influential officers of the late 1930s. [2] A family account published by Kamuran Melkendî identifies him as Mustafa Pasha Yamulki’s son. [5] Scott Abramson’s research distinguishes his Kurdish background from the Sunni Arab nationalist outlook of his associates. [3] Their cooperation arose in the politics of the Iraqi officer corps; shared involvement does not establish a common ethnic identity or an identical political programme.

1937: plans and the actual assassination

Majid Khadduri’s 1951 account names Yamulki among the important participants in planning the assassination of Bakr Sidqi. A footnote explicitly attributes its information about alternative plans to Yamulki himself, making the passage participant testimony transmitted through the historian. The killing actually described in the narrative occurred at Mosul aerodrome on 11 August 1937, where Sidqi and air-force commander Muhammad Ali Jawad were shot. [1] The proposed Military Club attack and the actual aerodrome shooting are separate parts of the record. Hamdi also dates Sidqi’s death to 11 August. [2]

The Seven and the Four

Khadduri records Yamulki’s Mechanical Transport command and later places him with Husayn Fawzi and Amin al-Umari in the three-officer group that split from the Four Colonels. His account associates their retirement with the February 1940 crisis and says Yamulki accepted a diplomatic position in Afghanistan. [1] Hamdi separately identifies the four remaining colonels as the group called the Golden Square. [2] Membership of the wider Seven should therefore be distinguished from membership of that four-man group.

A contemporary record from Karachi

The London Gazette of 8 October 1943 prints a Foreign Office notice dated 17 August approving Sayid Aziz Yamulki as Iraq’s consul at Karachi. [4] This is a contemporary administrative record of a specific office. The wording concerns British approval of a foreign consul, and the notice date differs from its publication date. It provides a firm point in his diplomatic career beyond retrospective accounts of army politics.

1951: a proposal and its limits

Abramson examines a November 1951 archival summary relayed through Abraham Zevideh. It records Yamulki seeking moral and diplomatic backing for an intended Iraqi Kurdish revolt, while emphasizing that it would not involve Turkey’s or Iran’s Kurds. Israeli official Yehoshua Palmon expressed interest. Abramson also says the proposed Paris discussion is not confirmed by the documentary record and that Yamulki never launched the intended revolt. [3] The evidence establishes an approach for support and its reported reception; it does not establish an implemented alliance or successful uprising.

Sources and further reading

  1. Majid Khadduri, Independent Iraq (Oxford University Press, 1951), pp. 122–123, note 1; 130–132; 148–149, note 1; participant interview and political narrative.
  2. Walid M. S. Hamdi, Rashid Ali al-Gailani and the Nationalist Movement in Iraq, 1939–1941 (Darf, 1987), pp. 34–38 and 43–45; archival study, officer groupings and rank.
  3. Scott Abramson, Early Zionist-Kurdish Contacts and the Pursuit of Cooperation: The Antecedents of an Alliance, 1931–1951, UCLA dissertation (2019), pp. 51–52 and 157–159; analysis of archival correspondence, including ISA 17108/35/Gal.
  4. The London Gazette, issue 36202, 8 October 1943, p. 4458; Foreign Office notice dated 17 August 1943 approving Sayid Aziz Yamulki as consul of Iraq at Karachi.
  5. Kamuran Melkendî, Mustafa Pasa Yamulki, Sara Distribution, 20 May 2009; family account identifying Colonel Aziz as Mustafa Pasha’s son.
  6. Mustafa Yamulki, unidentified photographer, dated 1910s by Wikimedia Commons, public domain; source image credited to Sara Distribution.