Bakr Sidqī

Bakr Sidqi, undated recording

Bakr Sidqī ( Arabic بكر صدقي, DMG Bakr Ṣidqī ; * 1890 in Kirkuk ; † August 12, 1937 in Mosul ) was an Iraqi officer.

Life

Sidqi was born into a Kurdish family. He graduated from the Military Academy of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul . He fought in the Balkan War and became a staff officer in 1915. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, he joined Faisal I , who wanted to build an Arab nation state with the Kingdom of Syria. After the Kingdom of Syria collapsed under the French claim to the area, Faisal became King of Iraq and Sidqi joined the Iraqi army. Sidqi excelled in the suppression of the Assyrian rebellion, which brought him prestige in the young state. There is suspicion that he should have ordered the looting and murder of civilians (as in the Semile massacre ).

Sidqi also commanded a campaign to suppress tribal uprisings in the mid-1930s. At the end of October 1936, Sidqi and Hikmat Suleiman carried out a coup d'état in which Sidqi used the air force and the military to depose the royal cabinet and force Ghazi I to appoint Suleiman as prime minister. Sidqi's goal was a more dominant role for the military in Iraqi politics.

He was considered more liberal and less Arab-nationalistic than his predecessors. His government concluded the so-called Islamic Four-Party Pact with the governments of Afghanistan , Iran and Turkey in Saadabad Castle near Tehran on July 8, 1937 , after a long-standing border dispute between Iraq and Iran was settled by an agreement on July 4, 1937 was.

Sidqi was murdered by rival officers in Mosul in 1937.

Individual evidence

↑ Edmund E. Gareeb: Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Oxford, 2004, p. 224.
^ ^A ^b ^c Phebe Marr: The Modern History of Iraq. 3. Edition. Boulder, 2011, pp. 39-53.
^ Henner Fürtig : Brief history of Iraq. Munich 2003, p. 33.
^ Fritz Grobba: The friendly relations between Kemalist Turkey and Afghanistan. In: The world of Islam. Vol. 9, No. 1/4 (1964), pp. 212-224 (here: p. 224).

personal data
SURNAME	Sidqī, Bakr
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	بكر صدقي (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Iraqi general
DATE OF BIRTH	1890
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kirkuk
DATE OF DEATH	August 12, 1937
Place of death	Mosul

[Ghareeb-1] Edmund E. Gareeb: Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Oxford, 2004, p. 224.

[marr-2] A ^b ^c Phebe Marr: The Modern History of Iraq. 3. Edition. Boulder, 2011, pp. 39-53.

[fürtig-3] Henner Fürtig : Brief history of Iraq. Munich 2003, p. 33.

[4] Fritz Grobba: The friendly relations between Kemalist Turkey and Afghanistan. In: The world of Islam. Vol. 9, No. 1/4 (1964), pp. 212-224 (here: p. 224).