The Kurdistan Observer
March 14, 2001

By Dr. Mahmoud Osman
Dr. Mahmoud Osman can be contacted on [email protected]

For the past 4 decades, internal disputes that sometimes led to armed conflicts have left its
fingerprints on the internal politics of the Iraqi Kurdish movement. In all rounds and until
today, two groups dominated the conflicts; a group led by Barzani and the other led by
Ibrahim Ahmad and Talabani. This is the first of two articles on the conflict, the peace
process, the Washington Agreement and the events that followed the agreement. In this
article, I will try and lay down the background and history of the conflict, the mediation
attempts and the events that led to the Washington Agreement.

The history of this division dates back to 1964, when the split within the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, KDP, between the president of the party the late Mustafa Barzani and the
political bureau, led by the late Ibrahim Ahmad, surfaced. The rift forced the political
bureau to leave to Iran after a very short period of armed conflict. In 1965, and when
fighting between the KDP, led by Barzani, and the central government resumed, the
political-bureau group returned to the Kurdish area according to a deal, with the exception of
their leader Ibrahim Ahmad as Barzani did not agree to his return. They were integrated
within the ranks of the KDP, but this integration was at the level of cadres and other
members only. The leadership of the political bureau wing was not integrated. This issue
was supposed to be discussed and settled at the 7th congress of the KDP, which was held in
November 1966 after a few months of delay. At the end of January 1966 and as a result of
the non-integration and lack of mutual trust, tension drastically increased and the political
bureau wing fled to Sulaymaniyah and then Baghdad. They allied themselves with the Iraqi
Government and carried out joint operations with the Iraqi forces against the Kurdish
revolution led by Barzani and the KDP. This bloody conflict continued until 1970 when the
current Ba’th government, that came to power in 1968, reached with the KDP the historic
agreement of 11th March. The political-bureau wing returned to the KDP once again.
Similarly to 1965 and according to another deal, ordinary members of the group were
re-integrated into the party and its forces but their leadership remained outside the leadership
of the KDP. This was an incomplete and tense reconciliation between the two sides. The
reason for this was because the 11th March agreement was a political victory for the KDP
and they were dealing with the political-bureau wing from the position of power and they
were not prepared to treat them as equal partners. Furthermore, the four-year armed conflict
has deepened the split and created wounds that were difficult to heal. We in the KDP
leadership under Barzani were viewing the deal on their return as an amnesty and not real
reconciliation. This situation remained until 1975, when the Kurdish movement suffered the
setback following the Algiers Agreement between Iraq and Iran. At the same time, Jalal
Talabani, who had already been in Damascus for three years, formed alongside others
formed a new political party the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK.

After the setback, disunity prevailed and three main groups were formed; the PUK, led
mainly by Jalal Talabani and Nawshirwan Mustafa; the Provisional Command of the KDP,
led by Mas’ud Barzani and Sami Abd al-Rahman; and the Kurdistan Socialist Party. [This
party was formed as a result of merging the KDP Preparatory Committee and the Kurdistan
Socialist Movement, which was previously a faction of the PUK]

The leaders of the PUK and the Provisional Command of the KDP were more or less the
same as, or a continuation of, the leaders of the two rival groups in the pre-1975 conflict.

Before the formation of the aforementioned parties, and to avoid falling into the same
conflict, I, alongside others, tried to mediate between the two leaderships in order to reach an
agreement on a joint framework to operate within. Our efforts reached a dead end quickly.
Talabani showed some flexibility and readiness to work within a joint framework and he
wrote in April 1975 a letter to this effect to the late Mustafa Barzani, who did not respond to
the letter and thought that delivering the letter by Ibrahim Ahmad was in itself provocative.

On the other hand, Sami Abd al-Rahman and others, who were intending to form the
Provisional Command of the KDP, were strongly against any form of co-operation with
Talabani and his group. Subsequently, the two sides went ahead with forming their own
parties in a state of total hostility against each other that lasted until 1986.

The period between 1976 and 1986 witnessed many violent clashes and battles between the
two sides and weakened the Kurdish movement to a great degree.

On 1st March 1977, and after a Ba’th Party mediation, an agreement was signed in
Damascus between Mas’ud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. This agreement did not last; shortly
after the signature, it was sabotaged by the strong objection of Sami Abd al-Rahman and
some others within the Provisional Command of the KDP and also the disapproval of the late
Mustafa Barzani, who was in the USA at the time receiving treatment for lung cancer. Some
extremist members within the PUK were also against any form of co-operation with the
KDP.

In November 1986, and as a result of loosing its strong position in the war, and trying to
form a Kurdish coalition against Iraq, Iran mediated between the two sides and an
agreement, signed by Jalal Talabani and the late Idris Barzani, was reached after only few
days of negotiations. Shortly after the agreement, Idris Barzani died at the end of January
1987 and his death was a blow to the reconciliation process. Never the less, the agreement
remained and became the first important step towards forming the Kurdistan Front.

In 1987, talks between the various Kurdish parties started on forming a framework to
operate within. The talks, in which we as KSP alongside many others mediated between the
two sides, lasted until May 1988 when the Kurdistan Front was formed. The front comprised
the PUK, KDP, KSP, Kurdistan People’s Party, Kurdish Socialist Party and the Iraqi
Communist party - Kurdistan Branch. The front could not unify the forces, resources and
other bodies, as needed in the movement. Every party gave priority to its own affairs more
than that of the front’s; but it was a good formulae for drawing the parties, especially the
PUK and the KDP, closer and stopping them being against each other. Its existence also
played an important role in avoiding a bigger political setback when the Iraq-Iran war ended
because the Kurdish political will was up to a certain extent united, when the Kurdistan
Front decided that struggle should continue by all possible means. It was also important for
rallying resistance against the Iraqi government in Kurdistan and gaining understanding and
support for the Kurdish issue abroad.

The Kurdistan Front’s framework continued through the drastic events that swept the area in
the following years. The events were Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait; the Gulf War; the
uprising of March 1991; the mass exodus in April of the same year; the establishment of the
safe haven; the negotiations with the Iraqi Government and finally the Government’s
withdrawal from the Governorates of Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah.

The differences over the failed negotiations with the government and the government’s
withdrawal from the aforementioned areas heralded a new era of dispute between the two
parties. They had different approaches to the future of relations with the Iraqi Government
and with the outside world. Talabani and PUK favoured seeking a solution with the
international community and Barzani and KDP were more for trying seriously to reach a
settlement with Baghdad. Furthermore, the remarkable increase of the areas under their
control and the resources available to them increased competition that escalated the dispute.
To settle this issue, the political leadership of the Kurdistan Front held a series of meetings
and decided finally, in August 1991, to hold elections in order to elect a council that had to
decide on the political future of Iraqi Kurdistan. In October of the same year, when the Iraqi
Government withdrew its administration from the aforementioned governorates of
Kurdistan, the duties of the proposed elected council were extended to the administration of
the region. Another addition was made and that was of holding another election with the
council’s one, to elect a regional president. The election was held on 19th May 1992, the
elections were held with many irregularities and rigging by the two main contenders. As a
result, none of the participating parties, including us, accepted the results and an agreement
between the two parties was reached on to the way the assembly was to be divided. The
results were very close with a slight majority for the KDP, the PUK insisted on splitting the
assembly by 50-50 and the KDP accepted. An administration was formed with the PUK
heading the council of ministers and the KDP heading the Kurdistan National Assembly.
This 50-50 formation created a vertical split in every governmental department, paralysed
the work of the administration, and planted the seeds of the armed conflict. Another
important point to make here is that the leaders, Talabani and Barzani, who did not get the
required 50 per cent of votes in the first round of the election and did not enter a second
round, did not take part in the administration; they also hardly met. This situation widened
the gap between the two sides, and subsequently, the centres of power and decision making
remained outside the administration, which became secondary in the political hierarchy. It
took orders from the leaders of the two parties and the Kurds ended up with a weak
administration, formed of two rival halves that was loaded with increasing competition!

An atmosphere of tension prevailed during the period of the joint administration. As a result,
the two parties retained their militias and this led to small clashes between the two sides and
with other parties too, between the PUK and the IMK, Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, and
between the KDP and the KSDP, Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party. During these side
clashes that took place between the end of 1993 and beginning of 1994 and preceded the
PUK-KDP’s armed conflict, the split was evident between the two main parties as each party
supported, directly or indirectly, the rival of the other.

Tension between the two sides reached its peak in May 1994, when the first incident of
fighting started in Qaladizah and turned into an outright war that spread very quickly to
most areas except the capital Arbil.

After a short period of fighting, the KNA made proposals for peace at the same time many
Kurds mediated too. This resulted in a precarious cease-fire that did not last long. As a result
of the 50-50 composition of the KNA, it could not play an influential role on the two parties
because most of the members of each block put the interests of the party that nominated them
before the Kurdish national interest.

In July 1994, under the auspices of the then French president, the late Francois Mitterand,
French officials invited the two parties to Paris and sponsored talks between them. Two
delegations, led by Nawshirwan Mustafa, PUK, and Sami Abd-al-Rahman, KDP, went to
Paris and held talks, in the presence of some French officials, the head of the Kurdish
Institute in Paris and also the head of the Kurdistan National Congress for North America,
KNC, for approximately two weeks. They reached an agreement that awaited the final
touches and the signatures of the two leaders, who were supposed to go to Paris and sign the
agreement in the presence of the French President who promised to help a united Kurdish
forum in France and other western countries. After various delays and postponements,
Barzani and Talabani did not make it to Paris and the mediation failed.

On 15th August 1994 and as a result of mediations by delegations of the British Parliament
and Socialist International and also other Kurdish parties, organisations and figures,
Talabani and Barzani signed another agreement in an official KNA session. The agreement
did not last more than 72 hours. In fact, it was breached before the British delegation leaving
Kurdistan.

Thereafter, and similar to the beginning of the conflict, the American-backed Iraqi National
Congress, INC, in which both parties are members, and some Kurds in Kurdistan and abroad
remained the main mediators between the two sides. Up to a certain extent, the joint
administration also played a role in containing the fighting; Kosrat Rasul Ali, the then Prime
Minister, tried to avoid any fighting in the capital Arbil.

The final attempt in 1994 was the so-called “year 2000 agreement”, in which both parties
vowed on 23rd November 1994 not to fight each other until year 2000 and took a very
strong line in condemning Kurdish inter-fighting by “prohibiting and criminalizing” it. Like
its predecessors, the agreement did not last more than a month, when the PUK captured the
village of Kasnazan near Arbil and subsequently Arbil itself at the very end of 1994. This
was a turning point in relations between the two parties. Since then, the KDP boycotted any
meeting with the PUK so long as they were in control of Arbil. PUK’s capture of Arbil and
the KDP’s pre-condition, for meeting PUK, complicated matters further and made it more
difficult for mediators who were faced by two tasks; to convince the PUK to withdraw from
Arbil and the KDP to meet the PUK without any pre-conditions.

In 1995, the escalation of the conflict was noticed. Trying to mediate between the two sides,
I, alongside others, made two trips to the region. The first was in March, with Bakhtiyar
Amin and Adnan Mufti, the current PUK-led government’s deputy Prime Minister who was
then independent. In this trip, we had a fairly strong international backing. We took various
letters to the two leaders urging them to meet, the most important of which was Francois
Mitterand’s one. Bakhtiyar Amin and I also visited the USA before going to Kurdistan and
met various US Congress members to get their support for our mission. Despite the letter of
the French president and the others, Barzani refused to meet Talabani and insisted on the
pre-condition of evacuating Arbil.

At the same time, the CIA was trying to carry out a covert action against Saddam. As was
disclosed later after its failure and just before our arrival to Kurdistan, it was done in
co-operation between the PUK, KDP and the INC. The plan was that while a coup attempt
was to take place, the PUK and the KDP would attack Karkuk and Mosul respectively. 48
hours before the start of the operation, the US officials who were stationed in Kurdistan told
the involved sides that it does not have anything to do with the operation and that they could
go ahead on their own. As a result, the KDP withdrew its deployed forces and stopped
co-operation but the PUK decided to go ahead with the INC and attack some government
troops. In addition to its useless outcome, the operation widened the gap between the two
parties and broke another bridge between them, the INC whose practical role as a mediator
ended there because the KDP did not find it neutral anymore.

Another bridge between the two sides that was still standing was 60 members of the KNA,
30 from each side who remained in the KNA building with a joint committee comprised the
heads of the two blocks and Ahmad Chalabi of the INC. They were on a strike inside the
building in protest at the fighting – an act that I thought, and told them in a meeting, was not
proportionate to the gravity of the situation as real MPs should, in such situations, legislate
and take decisions and not go on a strike. On the night of the 26th March 1995, and while
we were mediating between them, the KDP tried to capture Arbil without giving us any
hints. Their attempt failed and in retaliation, the PUK occupied the KNA building in Arbil
and the KDP members of the assembly had to leave to Salah-al-Din and this marked the end
of the KNA bridge between them.

As a result, our trip ended without any material outcome but to some extent, we managed to
contribute to the prolonging of the fragile cease-fire between them.

In June of the same year, 1995, Bob Dwytch of the US State Department sent a letter to the
two leaders urging the two parties to meet under the US government’s auspices in Europe.
On 8th July, the PUK attacked all KDP positions along the Hamilton Road and alleged,
without showing any evidence, that had they not attacked, the KDP would have attacked
them on the 10th.

On 16th July, the US government asked the two sides to stop the fighting. Meanwhile, we
reached Kurdistan on 15th July and started another mediation.
This time the delegation comprised Lord Eric Avebury, head of the UK Parliamentary
Human Rights Group; Kathryn Porter, president of the US Human Rights Alliance,
Bakhtiyar Amin, and myself. Some of the KDP officials were not enthusiastic about the
mediation and started to put obstacles to our mission; they objected to some members of the
delegation like Adnan Mufti while we were on our way to the region after giving their
approval before setting off from London. They also shelled Arbil shortly after our arrival to
it from Barzani’s headquarters in Salah-al-Din. Furthermore, they were inflexible to our
proposals. It seemed that their intention was to oust the PUK from Arbil in a humiliating
manner using whatever means possible and at any price. The PUK’s 8th July attack also
contributed to the KDP’s rigid stance on the mediation. It also broke the cease-fire, which
was supposed to hold at least till the 15th July. In this respect, we asked both sides, before
setting of from London, to hold the cease-fire, at least until our arrival.

At the same time, delegations of the two political bureaux met in Dublin in August in the
presence of representatives of the American, the British and the Turkish governments. They
agreed on some principles that were supposed to be turned into an agreement in a subsequent
meeting after one month, which was held in Dublin too in September. No agreement was
reached and Dublin II ended in a fiasco with each side blaming the other side for the failure.
This complicated matters further and increased tension.

In early 1996, and as they were parties to the talks in Dublin, the Turkish government
started to mediate between the two sides. This mediation, which took place in the presence
and with the approval of the USA and the UK, produced the Ankara declaration. It contained
22 clauses, of which the KDP only accepted 5 whereas the PUK accepted the whole
package, according to which the so-called PMF, Peace Monitoring Force, was formed and
deployed in between KDP and PUK forces. This force was in every way attached to Ankara.

At the end of July 1996, the situation erupted once more when the PUK gave access to the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards to attack the bases of the KDP-I in the PUK-controlled areas
in return for Iran’s support to them. The PUK, backed by Iran, launched an offensive against
the KDP in mid-august and wanted to oust them from Hamilton Road, Shaqlawa and
Salah-al-Din. Although it inflicted casualties and loss on the KDP and forced them to
withdraw from some areas, the offensive stopped short of reaching its aim. To everyone’s
surprise, the KDP sought direct military help from the Iraqi government, when Barzani
wrote a letter to Saddam asking him for help, as was disclosed later. The Iraqi help came on
31st August 1996 and the KDP managed to quash the PUK in an attack that put Arbil into
their hands and also Sulaymaniyah at later stage. The PUK fled to the Iranian border and
after a month, they managed to reorganise their forces and made a strong comeback to
Sulaymaniyah and other areas until the borders of Arbil in October 1996. This marked the
start of a totally new and dangerous era of rivalry between the two sides and broke another
bridge, the Kurdish parties that were mediating between them. The division in every sense
became more established and the situation fell more into the hands of Baghdad, Ankara and
Tehran, which were called to help one side against the other.

In January 1997, the Ankara process resumed and the two parties started meeting again. In
March 1997, and while the two delegations were in a meeting in Ankara, a KDP official was
killed in Arbil. The KDP delegation in Ankara pulled out of the meeting in protest and
alleged that the PUK assassinated the official.

Trying to mediate once more, and after consulting many Kurdish intellectuals, Aziz
Muhammad and I, as members of the political leadership of the Kurdistan Front, wrote a
letter to Talabani and Barzani on 2nd April 1997. We urged them to assist us in convening a
popular congress with the participation of the KDP, the PUK, other parties, democratic
organisations and political, religious and social figures. This was in order to discuss the
conflict thoroughly and form a national charter according to which a united government
would be established and solve other problems. We also wrote that this congress would
be the legal authority in Kurdistan until the holding of an election. Talabani accepted our
proposals and promised help. However, Barzani had conditions and said in his reply that any
move or mediation should be within the Ankara peace process and recognises the Arbil
parliament, in which the PUK was absent, as the legal authority!

As well as the issue of the Turkish border’s revenues, controlling the city of Arbil was
another issue that shifted the balance in KDP’s favour. And hence from then onwards and
until now, the KDP, in all rounds of talks, always preferred the status quo to remain as it is,
while the PUK, who did not find the status quo in its favour, wanted a radical change in the
situation.

Another major problem between the two sides was that of the PKK’s presence in the area.
The KDP was strongly against them and wanted them out of Iraqi Kurdistan, whereas the
PUK was up to a certain extent supporting them. This in turn put the Turks against the PUK
more and more. This was evident in the joint KDP-Turkish attack on 14th May 1997 on
PKK bases in Arbil and other areas not only near the Turkish border but deep into Iraqi
Kurdistan. This took while the uninformed PUK delegation was holding another round of
talks with the in Ankara as part of the Ankara peace process!

In June 1997, the two sides started exchanging open letters and projects for reconciliation. It
started by call from Mas’ud Barzani, during the opening session of the KNA, urging the
PUK leader to come to the KNA in Arbil “for frank and open discussion”. The PUK and its
allies replied by a 22-point proposal. Non-of the two calls were serious because they were
communicated via media channels and not through official ones. They were mainly for
domestic consumption.

On 30th Jun 1997, and after pressure from the USA and the UK, delegations from the two
sides met in Degala, on the borders of the two areas, but the meeting did not result in any
material outcome. Later, the USA and UK tried to bring the two sides together in a meeting
scheduled for the 15 July in Ankara; the PUK did not agree to the venue, which was later
changed to London on 17 July. The KDP this time refused and preferred Ankara.
Subsequently they lost hope for making them meet.

At the end of July, Talabani was invited to Washington. In this trip, he received a warm
treatment and attention by the US administration, which asked him to go to Turkey on his
way back. He agreed to the American request and visited Ankara on his way home. Up to a
certain extent, this broke the ice between the PUK and Ankara.

On 16 August 1997, and during the anniversary of the establishment of the KDP, Mas’ud
Barzani asked Aziz Muhammad to mediate and form a joint committee between the two
sides. This was on the condition that he should bare in mind two points; first, the legality of
the Arbil parliament; second, any mediation should be within the framework of the Ankara
Peace process. Forgetting the content of the 2nd April letter that we sent to the two sides,
and without any consultation, he accepted the task and started a new mediation. This
resulted in the formation of what is known today as the HCC.  Higher Co-ordinating
Committee for peace, but it did not meet until February 1998 because of new clashes
between the two sides.

An important point to note here is that during this year, the burden of providing for the
people was eased of the parties’ shoulders with the passing of UN Security Council’s
Resolution 986 or what is known as the oil-for-food programme. During the previous years
1994-1996, the parties had to allocate a share of their budgets to the people but after the
implementation of the oil-for-food programme, the two parties had their budgets for
themselves. In other words, although the programme improved the living conditions of the
people, it did not help in resolving the conflict as was expected.

On 23 September 1997, and without any prior warning, the Turkish army, in co-operation
with the KDP, attacked the Kurdish area in pursuance of the PKK. This was taking place at
a time when the USA and the UK were trying to bring the two leaders together. After loosing
hope in making Talabani and Barzani meet, they tried to bring together second rank officials
of the parties. They succeeded in doing so by holding a meeting between two delegations led
by Kosrat Rasul Ali, a powerful figure in the PUK whose popularity increased after leading
his parties strong comeback into Sulaymaniyah in 1996, and Nechirvan Barzani, Mas’ud
Barzani’s nephew and the second man in his party. The talks were held in London on 6th
October 1997. It did not produce any outcome, as the KDP wanted to maintain the status
quo, controlling Arbil and the revenues. The PUK wanted to change the situation. It
launched a military campaign, “the storm of revenge”, against the KDP on 13 October 1997
and it made some advances at the beginning. The Turks, USA and the UK in return, asked
the PUK to return to pre-12 October line. When the PUK refused their demand, the Turks,
supported by the USA and the UK, attacked them in November and pushed them back to
their original positions. This started a new era of hostility between the Turks and the PUK
and was a clear indication of the strong Turkish-KDP ties and of the fact that the USA and
the UK wanted to maintain the balance between the KDP and the PUK.

To secure its position, especially after 31 August 1996, the PUK started to have relations
with the Iraqi Government. They said that this was “mainly to avoid another Iraqi-KDP
attack against them”. These relations increased with time and reached their climax after the
Turkish attack. This was when two high-ranking delegations of the PUK and the KDP met
in Baghdad for “peace” talks in the presence of the notorious Ali Hasan Al-Majid, who was
responsible for conducting the genocide campaigns of Anfal against the Kurds in late 1980s.
At the same time, Iran was mediating too and some meetings were held in Tehran. In all
these various meetings, the two sides did not change their positions, the KDP remained in
favour of the status quo and the PUK wanted a solution that would end the status quo and
guarantee sharing the budget and the administration with the KDP. However, these meetings
decreased tension between the two sides and also between the Turks and the PUK as they
exchanged delegations in December of the same year. On the other hand, Talabani and
Barzani exchanged four letters at the end of 1997 and the beginning of 1998; and this led to
the first meeting of the HCC in February 1998 in the presence of Aziz Muhammad. These
HCC weekly meetings continued until June 1998 when the two sides reached a deadlock
over the main issues. During this period, February till June, the two sides held a few
meetings, of which I was a party to or closely aware of, outside Kurdistan. The first was in
Cairo, when they were invited to attend the Arab-Kurdish dialogue conference at the end of
May 1998. The second was in London, when Dr Fu’ad Masum, Hoshyar Zebari and myself
addressed a seminar in the Kurdish Cultural Centre on the results of the Cairo conference
and the bilateral meetings. The third was a meeting between Talabani, Hoshyar Zebari and
myself in London. These meeting looked promising and the two sides promised flexibility in
future talks in Kurdistan in fact Talabani showed his readiness to visit Barzani in
Salah-al-Din.

At the same time, and when the US administration knew of the increasing Iraqi and Iranian
involvement, it felt that the Kurdish card is getting out of its hands and started a serious
mediation between the two sides. It sent David Welsh of the State Dept to the region in July
1998; he met Barzani and Talabani and both leaderships and also officials of other parties
and figures. He also made supportive remarks in two news conferences in the PUK and KDP
areas. In this visit, and on behalf of his government, he invited two delegations led by the
party leaders to Washington, where after two weeks of marathon negotiations, they reached
the Washington Agreement on 17th September 1998.
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The Kurdistan Observer
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