The New President : Tongue Slips or Wrong Judgments?

By: Dr Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany

April 15,2005

Mr. Jalal Talabani, a veteran Kurdish politician and freedom fighter, was elected as the new Iraqi president, the 1st Kurd ever chosen for such a post not only in Iraq but also in the whole region, where minorities are usually suppressed and treated as 2nd class citizens as  it's the case for e.g. in Turkey, Syria, Iran.  Mr. Talabani is the general secretary of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish parties active in South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan) besides the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).  

Mr. Talabani was nominated as president through the Kurdistani Alliance List which harvested 75 seats in the January 30 2005 historic Iraqi elections and couldn't have got this post without the wholehearted support of all Kurdish political forces and people of Kurdistan, because it was thought that a Kurd in the position of a president will have better chances to deal with other Iraqi political factions about the just demands of Kurds in the new Iraq, namely the voluntary union of the people of Kurdistan with the rest of Arab Iraq through a bi-national federation, the reversal of ethnic cleansing and Arabization and rejoining of Kirkuk, Shangar, Shekhan and Khanaquin to the jurisdiction of the Iraqi Kurdistan federal region, drafting of a progressive permanent constitution, bringing the perpetrators of Halabja chemical attacks and genocidal Anfall campaigns from previous Baath regime to justice.  

While Mr. Talabani is known for his intelligence and political wit, he is also known for his sometimes bizarre statements and wrong judgments especially when he is in a position where he wants to appease some adversaries of Kurdish rights like with Turkish officials, Iraqi Arabs or Arabic media.

We should however assume that Mr. Talabani was too excited after being elected as president, that he allowed himself to make some statements which at best should be considered as unfortunate tongue slips and at worst as serious misjudgments which caused alarm bells to ring in Kurdish society, Iraqi society and also in the American administration.  

In his inauguration speech before the National Iraqi Assembly, he proposed a rather controversial and shocking statement calling for amnesty for the terrorists and Saddam loyalists , this call was met by a swift condemnation and refusal by the American administration  which objected to any amnesty for killers of Iraqi or American soldiers and was met with shock from Kurdish people and Shiite political forces, Mr. Talabani is known for his authoritarian style of leadership in the PUK, but as a president he should have some consultants helping him in drafting such sensitive issues, Mr. Massoud Barzani or Mr. Barham Salih for example are excellent Kurdish politicians who could help in that matter.  

Then comes another statement through an interview he has given to CNN, declaring a timetable of two years for allied forces to withdraw from Iraq, this unprecedented statement pushed the American administration to rush its defence secretary Mr. Rumsfeld hastily to Iraq to deny any such plans for a rigid timetable.  

Then comes  a statement, that he feels uneasy about the any execution of Saddam Hussein and other figures of previous regime involved in mass murders against Kurdish and Iraqi people, because he is a lawyer and has signed some sort of a European document against capital punishment, the statement was interpreted in Kurdish and Shiite circles as an attempt or rather a conspiracy to save the neck of Saddam Hussein and his associates from the noose and even to pardon him, Kurdish intellectuals and journalists were trying their efforts to limit the damage incurred by such bizarre statement, Mr. Talabani didn't bother himself to give a statement refuting what has been said.

Then comes another statement calling Kurdish hopes for independent Kurdistan as unrealistic due to geo-political reasons and due to the fact that the rubberstamp Kurdish parliament have chosen federalism and not independence, ignoring the fact that 98% of those Kurds asked during the referendum which accompanied the elections in Kurdistan did chose independence and not federalism. That the Kurds want to give federalism within Iraq a chance is understandable, but it's incomprehensive to deny the right of Kurds for independence in the future, especially from such a veteran Kurdish politician and freedom fighter.

Mr. Talabani had made a couple of months ago a statement that contradicts the Kurdish stand on issue of Kirkuk, when out of nowhere he suggested the Brussels Model for the issue of Kirkuk, which practically means to abandon the Kurdistani nature of Kirkuk and give in to the chauvinistic Turkish intimidations or chauvinistic Arab plans about Kirkuk. This Model  has never and can never be a solution for Kirkuk issue.

In his inauguration speech Mr. Talabani ignored all the international and Kurdish  or Iraqi politicians and recited a phrase used by the former Egyptian dictator and pan-Arabist, Jamal-Abdulnasir, the leader who wanted to exterminate all Jews and throw them to the sea, a leader who was not much different from Saddam Hussein in the way he drove his country into catastrophe. I find it rather odd that a Kurdish leader admires a pan-Arabist former dictator just as the imprisoned and weird PKK leader Abdulla Ocalan admires the pan-Turkic drunkard and genocide perpetrator Kemal Ataturk.   We are as Kurds proud to have Mr. Talabani as a president for the new Iraq , something which reflects the new and important role of Kurds in Iraq, but we hope that Mr. Talabani will be more careful about his statements and judgments, because in his new position such words will be taken very seriously by all sides. Such statements must conform with the Kurdish political traditions and the realities of the new Iraq .