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Jalal Talabani: The First Kurdish President of Iraq (1933–2017)

Updated: Mar 16

In the long and often tragic history of the Kurdish people, moments of genuine political triumph are rare enough to deserve extended attention. One such moment occurred on 6 April 2005, when Jalal Talabani — a Kurdish man from the village of Kelkan near Koi Sanjaq in northern Iraq, the founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a figure who had spent the previous fifty years fighting, negotiating, being exiled, returning, fighting again, and negotiating again — was elected President of the Republic of Iraq by the Iraqi parliament. It was a historic first: a Kurd was now the head of the state that had gassed his people. He served two terms as Iraqi president, from 2005 to 2014. Jalal Talabani died on 3 October 2017 in Berlin, aged eighty-three. He called himself Mam Jalal — Uncle Jalal — and the name stuck because it captured something real about his relationship to his community.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Koi Sanjaq and the Formation of a Political Leader

Jalal Talabani was born on 12 November 1933 in the village of Kelkan, near the town of Koi Sanjaq in what is today the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He grew up in an environment of political activism and resistance, entered Kurdish politics as a teenager, and rose through the KDP youth organisation through the 1950s. His early political formation was shaped by the debates within the KDP — between Barzani's tribal-military tradition and Ibrahim Ahmad's urban-intellectual tradition — and he aligned himself clearly with the Ahmad wing, the wing that wanted a modern political party with a broader social base.

Part 2: The KDP Years — From Student Activist to Party Official

Talabani's rise within the KDP was rapid. He married Heroine Ahmad, the daughter of Ibrahim Ahmad, deepening his connection to the intellectual wing of the KDP. The September Revolution of 1961 gave Talabani a military dimension that complemented his political skills: he commanded forces in the field and built military credibility that was essential for any Kurdish leader. But he was always more diplomat than soldier — his natural environment was the negotiating table rather than the battlefield.

Part 3: The Split — Founding the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

The expulsion of Ibrahim Ahmad and his supporters from the KDP in 1964 culminated in June 1975 in the founding of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan by Jalal Talabani. The timing was significant: the PUK was founded in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Barzani's uprising, when the Kurdish national movement in Iraq was in its most disorganised and demoralised state. Talabani saw the crisis as an opportunity to rebuild the movement on different foundations: a modern political party with a programmatic social democratic ideology, with internal democratic procedures, and with a commitment to building a broad social base.

Part 4: The PUK's Ideology — Social Democracy and Kurdish Nationalism

Talabani's political programme for the PUK combined Kurdish nationalism with social democratic commitments. He understood that a Kurdish national movement that could present itself as progressive, democratic, and committed to human rights — rather than purely as an ethnic nationalist insurgency — would have a better chance of attracting international support. Talabani himself was a genuine believer in democratic values: consistent across decades in his commitment to political pluralism, his willingness to negotiate and compromise rather than insist on maximalist positions, and his vision of a democratic Iraq in which Kurdish rights were guaranteed by constitutional arrangements.

Part 5: The 1980s — War, Anfal, and the Kurdish Response

The 1980s were the most terrible decade in modern Kurdish history. The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) created both enormous suffering for the Kurdish population and unexpected political opportunities. The Anfal campaign of 1986–1989, in which the Ba'athist regime used chemical weapons against civilians — most notoriously in the Halabja massacre of 16 March 1988, killing 3,500–5,000 people — was the nadir of the Kurdish experience in Iraq. Talabani brought evidence of the chemical attacks and the Anfal campaign to international attention, making him the principal Kurdish advocate in the international community's eventual recognition of the Kurdish genocide.

Part 6: The 1990s — Autonomy, Civil War, and the Washington Agreement

The 1991 Gulf War transformed the situation of Iraqi Kurds. Under international protection, the Iraqi Kurds held elections in May 1992 and established the Kurdistan Regional Government. The near-equal KDP-PUK split led to instability that erupted in 1994 into open civil war. The conflict was ended by the Washington Agreement of 1998, brokered by the Clinton administration, which Talabani helped to negotiate. His willingness to sacrifice short-term advantage for long-term stability was one of his most valuable qualities as a political leader.

Part 7: President of Iraq — Two Terms in Baghdad

Talabani's election as President of Iraq in April 2005 placed him at the centre of the most ambitious political experiment in the post-Saddam Middle East: the attempt to build a democratic, federal, multi-ethnic state in Iraq. He brought diplomatic acuity, the ability to build trust across ethnic and sectarian lines, and the commitment to compromise. He maintained relationships with Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, Turkmen, and Assyrian political leaders that most Kurdish politicians had never attempted to build. Foreign leaders who met him consistently remarked on his intellectual breadth, his command of multiple languages, and his ability to see political situations from multiple perspectives simultaneously.

Part 8: Talabani as Diplomat — The Art of the Possible

If there is a single quality that defines Talabani's political genius above all others, it is his understanding of the difference between the desirable and the achievable. His approach to diplomacy was built on the recognition that states and political actors have interests that can sometimes be aligned with Kurdish interests, and that the art of Kurdish politics lies in identifying those alignments and exploiting them without surrendering core principles. He was willing to negotiate with virtually anyone — Iraqi governments of various complexions, Iran, the United States, Syria, Turkey — if he calculated that the negotiation could advance Kurdish interests.

Part 9: Final Years and Death

Talabani suffered a major stroke in December 2012 that severely limited his capacity for political activity. His term as president ended in 2014. He died on 3 October 2017 in Berlin, Germany, at the age of eighty-three. He was buried in Sulaymaniyah — the city that was his political and intellectual home — in a ceremony attended by thousands of Kurds and by political figures from across the region and the world.

Part 10: Legacy — The Kurdish President of Iraq

Jalal Talabani's legacy is the product of a life of extraordinary length, breadth, and intensity in Kurdish and Iraqi politics. He co-founded the PUK and shaped it as the principal vehicle of Sulaymaniyah-area Kurdish politics for four decades. He played a decisive role in the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government in 1991 and in ending the fratricidal civil war of the 1990s. He became the first Kurdish President of Iraq — a position that would have seemed not merely unattainable but literally inconceivable when he was born in 1933. He showed that being Kurdish and being a citizen and leader of a multinational state were not contradictory identities but complementary ones.

Key Events Timeline

12 November 1933 — Born in Kelkan village near Koi Sanjaq, northern Iraq.

Late 1940s–1950s — Active in KDP youth organisation; rises through party ranks.

1958 — Iraqi revolution; KDP emerges from underground; Talabani involved in negotiations with Qasim.

1961 — September Revolution begins; Talabani commands forces and serves as political representative.

1964 — Expelled with Ibrahim Ahmad from KDP; begins period of independent political activity.

June 1975 — Founds the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) after collapse of Barzani uprising.

16 March 1988 — Halabja chemical attack kills thousands; Talabani brings evidence to international attention.

May 1992 — Kurdistan Regional Government elections; near-equal KDP-PUK split.

1994–1998 — KDP-PUK civil war tears Kurdistan Region apart.

September 1998 — Washington Agreement ends civil war.

6 April 2005 — Elected President of Iraq — the first Kurd to hold the office.

2005–2014 — Serves as President of Iraq, two full terms.

December 2012 — Suffers major stroke; treatment in Germany.

3 October 2017 — Dies in Berlin, aged 83; buried in Sulaymaniyah.

Chronology of Jalal Talabani

12 November 1933 — Born near Koi Sanjaq.

1940s–1950s — KDP activist and rising figure.

1961 — September Revolution; military and political roles.

1964 — Expelled from KDP.

June 1975 — Founds PUK.

1988 — Halabja massacre; brings Kurdish genocide to world attention.

1992 — KRG elections; power-sharing.

1994–1998 — KDP-PUK civil war.

1998 — Washington Agreement.

2005 — Elected President of Iraq.

2012 — Stroke; health declines.

3 October 2017 — Dies in Berlin.

References

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Jalal Talabani?

Jalal Talabani (1933–2017), known as 'Mam Jalal,' was a Kurdish political leader who founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in 1975 and served as the first Kurdish President of Iraq from 2005 to 2014. He spent fifty years as one of the most active figures in Kurdish and Iraqi politics, and is recognised as one of the most skilled political and diplomatic operators the Kurdish world has produced.

Why did Talabani found the PUK instead of staying in the KDP?

Talabani was expelled from the KDP in 1964 along with his father-in-law Ibrahim Ahmad in a dispute with Mustafa Barzani over the party's direction. After the 1975 collapse of Barzani's uprising demonstrated the dangers of personalised military authority, Talabani founded the PUK to create a modern political party with a programmatic social democratic ideology, broader social base, and institutional accountability.

What is Talabani's legacy?

Talabani is remembered as the Kurdish President of Iraq — the first Kurd to hold the office — and as the co-architect of the Kurdistan Regional Government. He demonstrated that a Kurdish politician could operate at the highest levels of international diplomacy, not as a petitioner for ethnic recognition but as a statesman whose judgements on complex regional issues were genuinely valued. The PUK he founded remains one of the two dominant parties in the Kurdistan Region.

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