Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq

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Kurdistan Democratic Party Partiya Demokrata Kurdistanê الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني


Image:Kdp-iraq.png

Leader	Massoud Barzani

Founded	16 August 1946
Headquarters	Arbil, Duhok

Political ideology	Social Democracy (party charter: Democratic Socialism)
International affiliation	Socialist International

Website	www.kdp.pp.se

Iraq
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Founded by Mustafa Barzani, the legendary Kurd who fought numerous revolts against Baghdad with success. It was established in Iranian Kurdistan in 1946 upon the creation of a Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, which lasted for less than a year. On 16 August 1946, a congress was formed in which the formation of the KDP was announced [1]. In this congress the KDP stated the political and economic situation of the Kurds in Iraq were different from that of Iran. It demanded autonomy for the Kurds of Iraq. Mulla Mustafa Barzani was elected as the president of the party, Kaka Ziad and Sheikh Latif were appointed as vice presidents. Hamza Abdullah was elected its Secretary- General

Rebelling against the Iraqi government in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the KDP became perhaps the single most influential Iraqi anti-Saddam group. Its peshmerga, or militia fighters, were able to operate with relative impunity in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq.

The KDP has jointly administered northern Iraq (which the Kurds call the free Kurdistan, because of its semi-independent status). The KDP became the leading party in the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. The other main Iraqi Kurdish party, the leftist Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, split with the KDP and established a de facto government of their own in the city of Suleymaniya.

"In May 1994 supporters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) clashed with supporters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), leaving 300 people dead. Relations among the groups soured in March 1995 when the KDP backed out of an attack on Saddam's front lines led by Iraqi National Congress. Over the next year the PUK and KDP fought several more times, eventually devolving into a state of civil war. In August 1996, leaders of the KDP asked Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to intervene in the war. Hussein sent at least 30,000 troops into the UN-protected Kurdish region, capturing the PUK stronghold of Irbil. The KDP was immediately installed in power. The U.S. responded with two missile strikes against southern Iraq, but in early September Iraq again helped KDP fighters, this time taking the PUK stronghold of As Sulaymaniyah. After Saddam's move against them in 1996, about 700 Iraqi National Congress activists and fighters were evacuated to the US, along with 6,000 pro-Western Iraqi Kurds. The fighting left over a thousand persons dead and forced thousands of civilians from their homes. A ceasefire established on 24 November 1997 ended the fighting for the remainder of the year, albeit with a few sporadic clashes.". ^[1]

Both Kurdish groups fought alongside the Coalition of the Willing to topple Hussein's regime in 2003. More recently, the KDP and PUK have united to form a joint list, the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan, under which it contested the 2005 Iraqi elections. This was followed by the decision in May 2006, to form an alliance with the PUK and run Irbil as a unified party. [1]

The party has its wings in every part of Kurdistan, the KDPI (KDP of Iran), in Syria (Al Party), in Turkey (PDK-Bakur) and even in Lebanon.

The KDP, alongside with its longtime rival the PUK, has been being criticized constantly by the people they rule, the reason, as is stated in most local media, is "representing themselves in the government of Iraq, not representing the people". Also the KDP and PUK have been accused of forming a dictatorship within their territory, using their US-granted power to rule the north of Iraq supremely, and currently it is alleged that many leaing KDP members have acquired tremendous amounts of money and property in highly suspicious ways.

An article written by a Kurdish Austrian citizen caused a state of panic within the classes of the party, talking about the past of Mustafa Barzani, climing he was a KGB agent, and accusing the KDP of corruption and crime. The KDP jailed the writer once he visited north of Iraq.^[2]