After many years of fratricidal war and bloody clashes, the difficult situation of the Kurdish people and the Ba'ath's extermination policy, which reached its peak in the Anfal campaigns, forced the parties to think about unity.
The idea of working together between the Kurdish forces and the Iraqi opposition was in the first statement of the Provisional Leadership of the Revolution (Qiyada Muwaqata), which was issued under the title (Kurdistan is the real arena of struggle), in which it called for coordination and unification of the revolution among the Kurdish parties. After this, through a statement, the parties of the (JWD) front showed their readiness for dialogue to turn both fronts (JWD and the Democratic National Front) into one front (Karwan Jawhar Muhammad, 2019: 304). This proves that the Kurdistan Democratic Party and its leadership understood early on that the most effective Kurdish force is unity. From this perspective, in the ninth congress of the party and the ninth clause, they decided on reconciliation and the formation of a unified front: ''Strengthening the relationship of friendship and cooperation between our party and all Iraqi parties and organizations that believe in and support the justice of the Kurdish cause, and strengthening the joint struggle between our party and all democratic parties and organizations in all parts of Kurdistan, as well as strengthening the relationship of friendship with all democratic and progressive parties and organizations in every corner of the world'' (History of the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Vol. 1, 2021: 385)
Official efforts to reorganize the Kurdish internal house with the steps of Idris Barzani (Responsible for the public relations of the KDP) began for general reconciliation (Karwan Jawhar Muhammad, 2019: 302; Masoud Barzani, 2021: 215). On July 18, 1987, a broad meeting was held with the presence of the delegations of (the Party, the Union, the Socialist Party, and PASOK), which consisted of: (Dr. Fuad Masum, Rasul Mamand, Sami Abdulrahman, and Lieutenant Karim), and it was decided to draft the final statement, which was published on July 30, 1987 (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 216). Finally, on May 2, 1988, the statement of the establishment of the Kurdistan Front was announced and published (Abdullah Agrin, Minutes: 9).
Structure and decision-making method in the Kurdistan FrontThe Kurdistan Front consisted of the seven main parties of that era (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 218):
1. Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
2. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
3. Iraqi Communist Party (ICP - Kurdistan Region)
4. Kurdistan Socialist Party (KSP)
5. Kurdish Socialist Party (PASOK)
6. Kurdistan Democratic People's Party
7. Kurdistan Toilers' Party
The principles and procedures for the work of the participating parties in the Kurdistan Front were as follows, as stated in the third paragraph of the internal regulations of the Front:
- The members of the Kurdistan Front shall abide by the Front's charter and internal regulations, and no member shall perform any activity that contradicts the regulations or weakens its position, and they shall all strive to strengthen it and its influence.
- The alliance relationship between its members is based on the principle of coordination and mutual respect for the organizational, ideological, and political independence of each member, and guarantees the freedom of work in all of Iraqi Kurdistan in a way that does not conflict with the Front's charter.
- Each party of the Kurdistan Front has the right to establish bilateral relations with any other national party, provided that it does not conflict with the goals of the Front.
- The decisions of the Front are approved by the consensus of the members.
- The differences that arise between the members of the Front are resolved through the logic of togetherness, alliance, and constructive democratic dialogue in the leadership bodies. (The Iraqi Kurdistan Front, 1988: 12)
Despite these solid and clear points, the Front did not become an institution that combined financial, military, and media capabilities, but was rather an institution for exchanging opinions and coordination (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 111). The reason for this lack of institutionalization goes back to two points:
Veto system and consensus: All decisions required consensus; if a party used its veto, it could paralyze the decision (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 112). Although this system was to prevent unilateralism and the fear of small parties of being swallowed by large forces, at the same time it made the decision-making process slow and paralyzed.
Maintaining party identity: The parties were not willing to hand over their Peshmerga Forces or their financial resources to a higher supra-party leadership. The Front was in reality a temporary confederation to manage the crisis phase, not a unified entity.
The above is a fact that cannot be denied, because during the era of the Front, all parties had their own armed and financial forces, but this does not diminish the importance of the Front, because by forming the Kurdistan Front, the Kurds were able to move from the stage of war and mutual elimination to the stage of consensus and working together.
To organize the leadership of the Kurdistan Front; on the proposal of Aziz Muhammad (Secretary of the Communist Party), a joint leadership model was adopted: Masoud Barzani became responsible for the Front's affairs inside Kurdistan, Jalal Talabani became responsible for the Front's affairs outside the Country (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 10). This division was further solidified in the meeting of September 11, 1988, in Damascus; it was decided that Jalal Talabani be made responsible for the Damascus office and have a seal, along with Dr. Mahmoud Osman for Arab and Islamic relations, and Karim Ahmed for Eastern Europe (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 221). This division was implemented; in such a way that when the Kurds are invited to France, Jalal Talabani leads the committee, and when the Kurdistan Front decides on an uprising, President Masoud Barzani leads the Peshmerga Forces and the steps and stages of liberating Kurdistan.
The Kurdistan Front also consisted of several institutions:- Political Leadership.
- Executive Bureau.
- Kurdistan National Council.
- Public Relations Agency.
- Media Agency.
- Administrative, Social and Judicial Affairs Agency.
- Religious Affairs Agency.
- Economic Agency.
- Professional and democratic organizations agency. (Iraqi Kurdistan Front, 1988: 12-14) Vol. 2
The Kurdistan Front took steps in several different areas:
- Media: It issued an official newspaper called (Kurdistan Front) (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 218).
- Humanitarian field: In 1988, with the knowledge and guidance of the Front's parties (especially the KDP and PUK), the idea of creating the Kurdistan Relief Association (KRA) was initiated in Tehran, with the aim of connecting with international organizations, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to help the influx of refugees (Abdulrahman Ali Kurda, 2018: 43).
- International diplomacy: In May 1988, the Front addressed a memorandum to the Moscow summit between (Gorbachev - Reagan), in which it demanded the cessation of Arabization, displacement, and ethnic cleansing (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 218). Also, in September 1990, a delegation of the Front (Jalal Talabani, Muhsin Dizayee, Sami Abdulrahman, Dr. Mahmoud Osman) visited Paris at the official invitation of the French government (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 223).
- Besides these, Masoud Barzani the President, highly values the role of the Front in reducing the effects of the Anfal genocide and says: ''If it were not for the Kurdistan Front, the disaster of 1988 would have been greater than that of 1975. The existence of the Front reduced the effects of this disaster to a significant extent'' (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 224).
The Kurdistan Front and the 1991 negotiations
In the autumn of 1991, after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War and the events of the Uprising, the Iraqi government sent a written message from Saddam Hussein to Barzani and Talabani (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 8). Masoud Barzani expressed the Front's readiness for a ceasefire and dialogue in a letter (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 12). The Front entered into the dialogue with the hope of a solution, although it did not trust the Ba'ath and the Baghdad authority was not sincere, but it only wanted to calm the situation (Sheikh Ata Talabani, 2000: 3-4). Also, the main topics of the negotiation between the Kurdistan Front and the Iraqi government were as follows (Sheikh Ata Talabani, 2000: 6):
* Tatbi' (normalization of the situation).
* Defining the autonomous region and expanding it by returning those areas where the majority of the population are Kurds.
* Determining the fate of the Anfal victims.
* Rebuilding destroyed villages, compensating and returning displaced farmers from forced settlements to their villages.
* Stopping the Arabization process, returning the imported Arabs to their places, and the return of the Kurds.
These five comprehensive points were the product of the unity and single direction of the political forces of Kurdistan, which contained most of the national demands of the people of Kurdistan, in addition to the fact that the Kurds going to Baghdad in a unified manner had given strength and will to the Kurdistan Front's negotiating delegation.
In Baghdad; the dialogue process went through two different stages of political mentality (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 113):
1. First round (delegation led by Jalal Talabani): The delegation went to Baghdad without having any project or written document prepared by the Front that defined the red lines and the limits of the demands, but had only discussed their general views.
2. Second round (delegation led by Masoud Barzani): In this trip, the Kurds moved from the mentality of slogans to the mentality of ''statehood and institutionalism''. The delegation had brought the Front's projects in writing and it was clear what they were discussing (Nawshirwan Mustafa, 2009: 113), and this prevented the Ba'ath from killing time with general promises.
The end of the Kurdistan Front
The Kurdistan Front was practically the main engineer of the March 1991 Uprising. The parties within the Front organized the masses against the Ba'ath through armed cells and secret organizations within the cities. After the unilateral withdrawal of the administrative and service departments of the Iraqi government from the Kurdistan regions at the end of 1991, a large power vacuum was created. Here, the Kurdistan Front took on the task of managing the region.
To legitimize political power and end the Front phase, the Kurdistan Front decided to hold the first general election on May 19, 1992, which led to the establishment of the Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government (Masoud Barzani, 2021: 218). This step was an acknowledgment that the Front model and the party consensus system could no longer manage society; the country needed legal institutions, but the strategic problem was here: the 1992 election did not lead to the erasure of the Front mentality, but changed the party consensus system to a ''fifty-fifty'' system between the KDP and the PUK, which later paved the way for the civil war of 1994.
However; the era of the Kurdistan Front remains as an important transition phase from armed struggle in the mountains to institutional work in the city in the contemporary history of the Kurds, which was the greatest achievement of protecting the Kurdish people from the danger of total erasure and the creation of the Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Sources- Encyclopedia Board (KDP), History of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Volume One, First Edition, Rojhalat Printing House, 2021.
- Iraqi Kurdistan Front, The Charter and Internal Regulations of the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, 1988
- Sheikh Ata Talabani, When Numbers Speak, First Edition, Ministry of Culture Publications Series, 2000.
- Abdulrahman Ali Kurda, Kurdistan Relief Association, First Edition, Rojhalat Printing House, Erbil, 2018.
- Karwan Jawhar Muhammad, Idris Barzani, Hevi Printing House, Erbil, 2019.
- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Volume Four, Part Two, 2021.
- Nawshirwan Mustafa, Negotiations of the Kurdistan Front - Ba'ath (1991), First Edition, Sulaymaniyah, 2009.
- Abdullah Agrin, A Bouquet from the Minutes of the Kurdistan Front.