The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is a Kurdish nationalist political party in Iraqi Kurdistan. The PUK describes its goals as self-determination, human rights, democracy and peace for the Kurdish people of Kurdistan and Iraq. The PUK is currently under the leadership of co-presidents Lahur Talabany and Bafel Talabani. The PUK was founded in 1975 by Jalal Talabani, Nawshirwan Mustafa, Fuad Masum, Adel Murad, Ali Askari and Abdul Razaq Feyli.
Jalal Talabani was a Kurdish politician who served as the sixth President of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as the President of the Governing Council of Iraq. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq. He is known as Mam Jalal amongst the Kurds.
Doctor Abdul Latif Rashid was the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources under the government of Nouri al-Maliki. He previously served as Minister of Water Resources under the Iraqi Transitional Government and as Minister of Irrigation under the Iraqi Interim Government. Dr Rashid was formerly a spokesperson for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the United Kingdom. He is a graduate of the University of Manchester.
Barham Salih is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who is the eighth President of Iraq.
The Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK) sometimes referred to simply as the Kurdistan Alliance (KA) is the name of the electoral coalition first presented as a united Kurdish list in the January 2005 election in Iraq. Elections were held simultaneously for the assembly of Kurdistan Region. The Alliance represents a coalition of the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
Omer Fattah Hussain is the former deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Due to political problems in the PUK, he handed his resignation in on 24 February 2009. He also served as acting Prime Minister of Jalal Talebani's Suleimaniyeh based Kurdish administration from July 2004 (when Barham Salih resigned to become Deputy Prime Minister for the Iraqi Interim Government until June 2005 with the re-unification of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous Republic.
Masoud Barzani is a Kurdish politician who has been leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) since 1979, and was President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 2005 to 2017. Barzani was born in the self-declared Republic of Mahabad, and succeeded his father Mustafa Barzani as leader of the KDP in 1979.
Qubad Talabani is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who has been the Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region since 2014. Formerly serving as the representative of Kurdistan to the United States, Qubad is the second son of former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
The Iraqi Kurdish Civil War was a military conflict that took place between rival Kurdish factions in Iraqi Kurdistan during the mid-1990s, mostly between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Over the course of the conflict, Kurdish factions from Iran and Turkey, as well as Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish forces, were drawn into the fighting, with additional involvement from American forces. Between 5,000 and 8,000 fighters and civilians were killed.
The Kurdistan List, also known as the Kurdistan Alliance or the Brotherhood List, is the name of the electoral coalition that ran in the Kurdistan Regional Government parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2009. The Kurdistan List represented a coalition of the two main ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, namely the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. It is the successor of the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan.
Adel Murad was an Iraqi Feyli Kurdish politician whom along with Jalal Talabani, Nawshirwan Mustafa, Kamal Fuad, Ali Askari, Fuad Masum and Abdul Razaq Faily, was the co-founder of the main opposition party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. He had previously served as representative of PUK in Baghdad under Iraq's Transitional Government and a Representative of Jalal Talabani in Damascus. He was a graduate of the University of Baghdad, with an MSC in Chemistry. Once a commander and Peshmerga veteran, Murad has since been calling for international support and armament from including Russia to support the Peshmerga forces.
Nawshirwan Mustafa was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the General Coordinator of the Movement for Change and the leader of the opposition in the Kurdistan Region from 1 April 2009 to his death on 19 May 2017.
Imad Ahmad Sayfour is a Kurdish, Iraqi politician. He was born in Khanaqin in 1955 and graduated from Baghdad Technical Institute in 1980. He is a senior member of Iraqi President Jalal Talebani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and has served as Minister for Housing and Reconstruction and as Deputy Prime Minister in the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Dindar Najman Shafiq Duski is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who is displacement and migration minister in the second cabinet of Nouri Maliki. He is one of the leaders of the kurdistan islamic union.
The Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections of 2013 took place on 21 September 2013. It was the fourth legislative election in Kurdistan Region since 1992. The candidates were competing for a total of 111 seats out of which 11 seats were reserved for minorities. According to the Iraqi High Electoral Commission, there were 366 female and 736 male candidates for the elections. A total of 2,653,743 people were eligible to vote throughout the three provinces of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk of which 74% cast their ballots.
Muhammad Fuad Masum is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the seventh President of Iraq from 24 July 2014 to 2 October 2018. He was elected as President following the 2014 parliamentary election. Masum is the second non-Arab president of Iraq, succeeding Jalal Talabani, also Kurdish, and was a confidant of Talabani.
Lahur Talabany, born 1976; also known as Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabany is Co-President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Former Director of the Zanyari Agency, one of two intelligence services in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq operating within the framework of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, and Former Director of the Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) special forces group. Known commonly as Sheikh Lahur, Talabany is a leading figure in the fight against terror especially in the fight against ISIS.
Bafel Talabani, in Kurdish Bafel Talebanî بافڵ تاڵەبانی is an Iraqi Kurdish politician and an emerging political figure and dealmaker in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He is the older son of former PUK leader Jalal Talabani.
Ala Talabani is a Kurdish politician and head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan bloc in the Iraqi parliament. She is a three-time member of the Council of Representatives of Iraq.
The Kurdistan Workers Party ceasefire of 1993 was a short lived ceasefire declared by Abdullah Öcalan at a press conference he held together with Jalal Talabani ahead of Newroz on the 17 March 1993.
