Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

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Patriotic Union Of Kurdistan




Leader	Jalal Talabani

Founded	June 01, 1975
Headquarters	Sulaymaniyah

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

Website	www.puk.org

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) (est 1975) (Kurdish: Yakêtî Nîştimanî Kurdistan) is a political party in Iraqi Kurdistan.

1 Mission
2 Leadership
3 History
4 Recent activities
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Mission

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan claims to be working for self-determination, human rights, democracy and peace for the Kurdish people of Iraq.

[edit] Leadership

The Secretary General is Jalal Talabani, the current president of Iraq. Nawshirwan Mustafa is the deputy Secretary General of the party. The PUK's policy and decision making body also lies within the Politburo.

[edit] History

The PUK was a coalition of five separate political entities that united under the leadership of Jalal Talabani also known to Kurds as Mam ("Uncle") Jalal and Nawshirwan Mustafa; the leading factions were Komala Ranjdarani Kurdistan ("The League") and Shorish Geran ("revolution spreaders").

The PUK received grassroots support from the urban intellectual classes of Iraqi Kurdistan upon its establishment, this was partly due to 13 of its 15 founding members being PhD holders and academics. Originally, the party was a leftist political movement which has progressively moved towards the centre ground and has now become a social democratic party and an associate member of Socialist International.

In the early 1980's the PUK evolved and broadened its appeal to all sections of Kurdish society especially the rural classes . The regional Kurdish assembly elections showed that the PUK's support lies predominantly in the southern area of Iraqi Kurdistan. Since the first Persian Gulf War, the PUK has jointly administered northern Iraqi Kurdistan with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). However, cooperation with the KDP in administering the area was not always smooth, and occasionally violence flared up between KDP and PUK militias. Effectively the areas was divided into KDP-controlled territory and PUK-controlled territory (centered around Suleymaniya).

[edit] Recent activities

The PUK joined with the KDP and smaller parties to form the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan as an umbrella group contesting the Iraqi National Assembly election, 2005. This unified Kurdish list gained 25.6% of the vote on the first post-Saddam Iraqi elections on 31 January 2005. Jalal Talabani is now the president of the republic of Iraq.

This was followed by the decision in January 2006, to form an alliance with the KDP and run Iraqi Kurdistan under a unified administration. [1]