KDP POLITBURO

   The KDP Politburo was the faction of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Ibrahim Ahmed and his son-in-law Jalal Talabani against Mulla Mustafa Barzani, the president of the KDP. Ahmad and Talabani represented the more intellectual and socialist wing of the emerging Kurdish nationalist movement in Iraq, while Barzani headed the more tribally oriented, conservative forces. The relationship between these two factions varied considerably between unity and outright armed struggle. Eventually Barzani won by driving the KDP Politburo over the Iranian frontier. Contritely, Ahmad and Talabani finally rejoined Barzani, who had become the undisputed leader of the Kurdish nationalist movement in Iraq by the mid-1960s.

   After Barzani's defeat by the Iraqi government in 1975, however, the KDP Politburo in effect reemerged when Talabani created his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) on 1 June 1975. Since then, the KDP and the PUK have been the two, virtually equal, contenders for power among the Iraqi Kurds.