Nawshirwan Mustafa

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former - deputy secretary general
Nawshirwan Mustafa

In office
March, 1975 – 5th of December 2006
Born	1944 Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan
Political party	Independent candidate. Former : Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

Nawshirwan (Also Noshirwan) Mustafa is a prominent Kurdish politician. He was the co-founder and was until December 2006 the deputy secretary general and political bureau member for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two leading political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq in general.

1 Biography
2 Military career
3 Current Affairs
4 Books
5 See also

[edit] Biography

Mustafa was born in 1944 on Ber Khaneke road in the city of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Following his graduation from high school, Mustafa attended Baghdad University were he attained a degree in political sciences.

Following graduation he returned to Sulaimaniyah and was editor of the Kurdish weekly newspaper "Rizgary" (Kurdish for Salvation) a weekly journal set up in the brief lull in hostilities between the central Iraqi government and its Kurdish population. During this period he and several other Kurdish intellectuals formed a secret nationalist party named Komala. He was exiled soon after for involvement in Kurdish politics. Whilst in exile he pursued academic studies in Austria. In 1975 whilst only 2 weeks from completing his doctoral thesis at the University of Vienna, Mustafa was informed that a new uprising was about to begin in Iraqi Kurdistan and he left immediately. Following his return, Mustafa quickly became a leading light of the Komalai Ranjdaran grouping (a forerunner of the modern day PUK) and became general secretary of this organisation, before taking part in the negotiations which led to the merging of the Komala with the Shoresh Garan grouping of current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani which led to the formation of the PUK.

On the 5th of December 2006, Mr Nawshirwan Mustafa resigned from his post as the deputy leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). His resignation came as his deep reformist agenda was blocked by the Iraqi president and the leader of the PUK, Jalal Talabani. He is currently planning to create an independent Kurdish media centre in the city of Suleimani in Southern Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan).

[edit] Military career

A military commander as well as a political figure, Mustafa headed the Kurdish revolution from 1976, and was the most senior member of the PUK in Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1991 uprising which followed Iraq's defeat in the first Gulf war. As such, he took charge of the war of liberation fought by the Kurdish people which involved the liberation of the Kurdish population centres of northern Iraq including (Kirkuk (being recognised as the architect of the Raparin). Following the 1991 uprising Mustafa was allowed to return to his initial career and began to organise Kurdish academia and wrote several books, while maintaining his political profile.

[edit] Current Affairs

Currently Mustafa is an independent Kurdish politician living in the city of Suleimani in Kurdistan. Formerly, he was the secretary general for the PUK. He is working for Kurdish rights in Iraq and is taking part in the negotiations which are aimed at establishing a new Iraqi government, returning Kirkuk to the Kurdistan region and reuniting the Kurdish administrations.

In 2005-2006, He started a process of reform in the electoral system of PUK aiming to increase democracy within the party, end nepotism and encourage the younger generation of Kurdish people to get involved in politics. But due to differences with the other factions of the PUK, especially of that of Jalal Talabani, he resigned from his post ^[1].

[edit] Books

*"The fingers which break each other." Published in:

Discusses the often treacherous nature of contemporary Kurdish politics.

*"Going around in circles." Published in: 1998

An account of the diplomacy of the Kurdish liberation movement in the 1980's. A period in which Saddam Hussein launched the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds.

*"The emirate of Baban between the grinding stones of the Persians and Turks" Published:

A historical account of the early Kurdish principality of Baban (1500-1850), A frontier principality between the Ottoman and Safavid empires, which was a microcosm of the power struggles of the great Middle Eastern empires.