They won 75 out of seats, coming a respectable second to the winning Shia Arab list. Later that year, religious Shias, Turkmens in the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk and even some Sunnis backed the Kurdish secularist to be president. Syrian, Turkish and Iranian Kurds were jubilant. Talabani cut a paradoxical figure: part devotee of good food and fine cigars, part mountain warrior.
He instituted a ministry of human rights in the Kurdish northern province of Iraq, yet was prone to autocratic outbursts. In he was re-elected under a new constitution, with Sunni and Shia vice-presidents, and transformed what had been a primarily ceremonial role into a more active one, whether as a defender of the constitution, or as commander of the Iraqi special operations forces.
He married Hero Ibrahim Ahmed in A member of the KDP central committee at 18, Talabani began studying law at Baghdad University two years later, in Allowed to graduate in , Talabani briefly commanded an Iraqi tank unit. Repression returned, however, and prompted another uprising in Talabani took charge of Peshmerga battalions around Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk and routed government forces.
Abdul Salam Arif ousted Qasim in , and opened talks with Talabani, but conflict rumbled on. Young, urban and sophisticated, fluent in Arabic, Persian, French and English, Talabani increasingly saw Mustafa Barzani as an antiquated tribalist. They also drew on different constituencies. However, Kurds revolted in after Baghdad broke promises to grant them jurisdiction over Kirkuk.
In Saddam assumed absolute power in Iraq and in launched the invasion of Iran that started an eight-year war.
As many as 5, Kurds died in the poison gas attack on Halabja, which Talabani described as "an Iraqi war of genocide against the Kurdish people". In the Gulf War, Talabani helped inspire resistance against Saddam, hoping that the US would overthrow the president. Kurdish forces advanced to within 90 miles km of Baghdad.
But after the Americans and their allies had withdrawn without taking the Iraqi capital, Saddam began another intense military campaign against the Kurds. More than a million Kurds fled into the mountains after Turkey closed its borders to refugees. Eventually the coalition forces set up safe-haven refugee camps on the Iraqi side of the border and protected them from the Iraqis with a no-fly zone.
But the two Kurdish leaders fell out again when Mr Barzani made an agreement with Saddam that once more made no provision for sharing Iraq's oil money. In , still disagreeing over relations with Baghdad, the Kurdish factions held elections. But the vote resulted in stalemate and the Kurdish leaders were soon at loggerheads again. By the time the US-led coalition was planning its invasion of Iraq in , Talabani and Massoud Barzani had decided to co-operate.
Both leaders resisted American pressure for Turkish troops to enter Iraq, and both eventually agreed to turn over control of foreign policy, defence and monetary policy to Baghdad in return for retaining self-government in other policy areas.
This angered those Kurds, who believed it was time to press for full independence. Children: Qubad and Bafel. Education: Baghdad University, law degree, Religion: Sunni Muslim. November , - President of Iraq's Governing Council. This position rotates monthly and nine of the 25 ICG members take turns filling the spot. January 30, - One of approximately 7, candidates in Iraq's first free elections in more than 50 years.
April 6, - Is elected president of Iraq by the new transitional national assembly, and is sworn in the next day.
April 22, - Wins a second term as president as part of an interim Iraqi government.
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