Jalal Talabani

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Jalal Talabani (2010)

Jalal Talabani ( Arabic جلال طلباني, DMG Ǧalāl Ṭalabānī , Kurdish جه‌لال تاڵه‌بانی Celal Talebanî ; * November 12, 1933 in Kelkan , Iraq ; † October 3, 2017 in Berlin , Germany ) was President of Iraq from 2005 to 2014 and Chairman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq, alongside the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP) one of the two major parties in the Kurdish part of Iraq.

After the Iraq war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein , he was a member of the Iraqi Government Council , which dissolved on June 1, 2004. In the elections on January 30, 2005, the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan , which the PUK had joined, received 25.7% of the vote and thus secured 71 seats in the Iraqi parliament . In the new Iraqi government , the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan provided five of a total of 32 ministers, while the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan provided a total of eight ministers.

Talabani's vice-presidents were the Sunni Tarek al-Hashemi and the Shiite Khodair al-Khozaei .

Life and political career

Talabani comes from a family of Qādirīya - sheikhs from Koya , who had great influence in the region; his political ascent is attributed not only to his personal qualities but also to the influence of his family. Talabani was involved in Kurdish politics as early as the 1950s. He was an early member of the KDP and leader of the KDP student organization. Talabani attended the University of Baghdad law . After successfully completing his studies in 1959, he was called to serve in the Iraqi armed forces . In 1961, Jalal Talabani took part in a Kurdish revolt against the government of Abd al-Karim Qasim . Because of disagreements with the KDP chairman Mustafa Barzani , Talabani left the party and joined a splinter group of the KDP in 1965. In 1966 this group allied itself with the central government in Baghdad in order to use military means against the KDP. In Saddam Hussein's cabinet, he hoped for the office of vice-president, which he then left to his deputy Taha Muhi ad-Din Maʿruf because he was afraid of being separated from his Kurdish population in Baghdad. On 1975 Talabani founded the PUK together with other Kurdish politicians in West Berlin .

While Maʿruf actually remained vice president until 2003, Talabani initially allied with Iran and the Syrian Baathists against their Iraqi rivals. After the use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq in 1988, attributed to the Iraqi central government, Talabani fled to Iran. In 1991 he took part in a renewed uprising against Baghdad and fought with Barzani's son Masud Barzani a year-long civil war in the Kurdish part of Iraq.

His cousin was Ghazi Talabani , who was killed in an assassination attempt in June 2004.

Talabani was elected President of the country on April 6, 2005 by the Iraqi parliament with 227 votes . There were 275 members in the National Assembly. The parliament elected the Shiite and former finance minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi and the Sunni interim president Ghazi al-Yawar as deputy president.

Changing allies

The Iraqi police show posters of Jalal Talabani and Jawad al-Maliki in Najaf , December 2006.

Initially, Talabani joined the KDP founders Barzani and Maʿruf . After internal power struggles, he fled to Iran together with General Secretary Ibrahim Ahmed in 1964, then allied himself with the regime in Baghdad against Barzani in 1966 . But when Baghdad sought reconciliation with Barzani in 1970–74, Talabani was temporarily dropped and returned to Barzani's KDP in 1971–75.

Instead of the two, Marʿuf became vice president in 1974, while Talabani allied himself in 1975 with the anti-Iraqi regime of the Syrian Ba'ath Party against Baghdad. During the Iraqi-Iranian War he fought with Turkey and Saddam Hussein against the pro-Iranian Kurds Barzanis in 1984 . In 1988, however, he was defeated by Saddam Hussein's troops. In 1991 he therefore joined the Kurdish uprising in Barzani, which, however, sought a compromise with Baghdad and the annihilation of Talabani in 1992, while Talabani was only able to stay in Sulaimaniyya in 1996 thanks to Iranian military aid . In 1998 Barzani and Talabani signed a peace agreement in Washington.

Another switch to the USA in 2003 brought him the aforementioned presidency on April 5, 2005; since then Talabani has represented pro-American politics directed against his former ally Syria.

During his time as President of Iraq, he refused to sign death sentences, for example against Saddam Hussein or Tariq Aziz , with reference to being a Social Democrat against the death penalty .

health

During his time as president, Talabani had recurring health problems. In 2007 he went to Jordan because of exhaustion and in August 2008 he had a heart operation in the USA. In summer 2012 he was treated in Germany.

On December 17, 2012, he suffered a stroke and was admitted to a hospital in Baghdad. On December 20, he was brought to the Charité (Berlin) for treatment . A year and a half later he returned to Iraq. In the following years he repeatedly traveled to Berlin for treatment, where he died on October 3, 2017.

Awards

Talabani was a bearer of the Wisam Al Rafidain order, the highest decoration of the Iraqi state.

Web links

Commons : Jalal Talabani  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin van Bruinessen : Agha, Sheik and State - Politics and Society of Kurdistan , 2nd ed., Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88402-259-8 , p. 414 f.
  2. ↑ a b Profile: Jalal Talabani. Retrieved August 29, 2018 .
  3. ↑ tagesschau.de: Iraq's ex-president Talabani has died. Retrieved on August 29, 2018 (German).
  4. ^ Who's who in Iraq: Jalal Talabani . April 6, 2005 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed August 29, 2018]).
  5. ↑ In the hospital Iraqi President Talabani suffers a stroke. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. December 18, 2012, accessed December 21, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Iraqi President should be dealt with in Germany. In: news.ORF.at. December 19, 2012, accessed December 21, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Iraqi President Talabani suffers a stroke . In: faz.net . December 18, 2012, accessed October 4, 2017.
  8. ↑ Iraqi President should be dealt with in Germany . In: orf.at . December 19, 2012, accessed October 4, 2017.
  9. ↑ Gudrun Harrer: Former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has died . In: The Standard . 3rd October 2017.
  10. ↑ Inga Rogg: Iraq is losing a bridge builder . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . 3rd October 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Talabani, Jalal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES جلال طلباني (Arabic); جه لال تاڵه بانی (KuS)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iraqi Kurdish politician and Iraqi President
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Kelkan , Iraq
DATE OF DEATH 3rd October 2017
Place of death Berlin , Germany