Tue Feb 15, 2005 08:37 AM ET
By Seb Walker
ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader positioned to become the country's next president, crowned a lifelong struggle for Kurdish rights with huge success in the country's historic Jan. 30 election. Polling 25 percent of the national vote, his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and its election partner, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), are Iraq's new power brokers and Talabani is confident his wish to be president will be granted.

"We are not playing a role of siding with one bloc against another," he told Reuters after the final tally Sunday, in an assurance the Kurds will seek a constructive post-ballot role.

"But without reaching agreement there is some kind of understanding, yes. The Shi'ites are insisting on having the post of prime minister and they are supporting Kurds to have the post of president."

It would cap a life dedicated to the Kurdish cause that began at the age of 13 and, by the time of the 1958 Iraqi revolution, saw the lawyer-trained Sunni an inner member of the KDP.

Talabani, born near Arbil in 1933, became a lieutenant to Mullah Mustafa Barzani, patriarch of Iraqi Kurdish nationalism and founder of the KDP, now led by his son Massoud Barzani.

Regarding himself a modern, socialist and urban alternative to the tribal authority wielded by the elder Barzani, Talabani split from the group in 1974 following a crushed uprising against the Iraqi government.

The following year, Talabani formed the PUK in Damascus, fueling his rivalry with the Barzanis and encouraging both to cooperate with regional powers Iran and Turkey, and even, at times, with Baghdad during Saddam Hussein's rule.

The regional powers were adamantly opposed to the Kurdish dream of an independent Kurdistan but were eager to use Kurds on their neighbors' territory to pursue their own strategic aims.

Talabani's harshest lesson came in 1988 when Iraq gassed Kurdish towns near the Iranian border during an Iranian-PUK offensive in the waning days of the Iran-Iraq war.

Following their uprising against Baghdad after the 1991 Gulf war, Iraqi Kurds saw their first, perhaps best, shot at self-rule go up in smoke when Talabani and Barzani sparred over control of a provisional north Iraq government elected in 1992.

Bickering escalated into a civil war that saw the KDP enlist Baghdad's help against the Iranian-backed PUK. A U.S.-sponsored truce backed with the threat of a diplomatic embargo took hold in 1998, and the two factions now have parallel, cooperating administrations.
Ahead of the Jan. 30 election, the two rival parties struck a deal and ran together on one ticket, creating at least the image of Kurdish unity. Since the election, they have agreed Talabani should be the one to represent them in any government.

While the Kurds have often talked about independence for their estimated 20 million people spread over four countries, they know that neither their chief allies the Americans, nor the Turks, Syrians, Iranians or the rest of Iraq would tolerate a full-blown bid for statehood.

Their aim now is to secure as much power under a federal Iraq as possible and they will bargain hard for as much autonomy as they can get in the constitution due to be drafted by the newly elected National Assembly in the months ahead.

As well as the constitution, furious debate is expected over Kirkuk, the city north of Baghdad that is home to some of Iraq's richest oil reserves and which is claimed by Kurds, Turkish-speaking Turkmen and Arabs alike.

The Kurds, who did very well in local elections around Kirkuk, winning 60 percent of the vote, long to see Kirkuk as the capital of the Kurdish region, but that is unacceptable to Turkmen and Arabs, with whom tensions are rising.