Massoud Barzani

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Massoud Barzani
1st President of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region
Incumbent
Assumed office  June 14, 2005
Preceded by	n/a
Succeeded by	(incumbent)
Born	August 16, 1946 Mahabad, Iran
Political party	Kurdistan Democratic Party
Religion	Sunni Muslim

Massoud Barzani (Kurdish: Mesûd Barzanî) (born August 16, 1946) is the President of the Autonomous Kurdish Government in Iraq and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He succeeded his father as the leader of the KDP in 1979. In 1995, he sent a letter asking Saddam for assistance to help reclaim the city of Erbil that had been lost by the KDP to rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by the current President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd. Saddam obliged and reclaimed the city, keeping Barzani in charge [1]. Barzani led the Kurdistan Democratic Party to establish a government in Iraqi Kurdistan with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. After the invasion of Iraq he became a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and was the president of the council for April 2004. He was elected as the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region by the Iraqi Kurdistan's Parliament in June 2005. (see [2] , [3] and [4]). Barzani was born in Mahabad, Iran, during the rule of the Republic of Mahabad. He is the son of the former Kurdish nationalist leader Mustafa Barzani.

Preceded by: N/A

President of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region (Iraq) June 14, 2005 – Present

Succeeded by: Incumbent

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Massoud Barzani

• Profile of Barzani, kdp-ankara.org.tr
• CPJ protests jail term for Kurdish writer on defamation conviction, Committee to Protect Journalists, January 11, 2006.
• Kurdish writer is to be retried for the crime of defaming Masoud Barzani, Reuters, January 25, 2006.
• Eric Garris. Freedom of Speech, Kurdish-Style, Antiwar.com, January 25, 2006.