Iraq’s Kurds begin a week of mourning for ex-leader Talabani
FLAGS FLEW at half-mast across Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdish region yesterday as Iraqi Kurds began observing a week of mourning following the death of the country’s former president, Jalal Talabani, once a symbol of unity.
Mr Talabani’s death in a Berlin hospital on Tuesday afternoon, at the age of 83, came days after Iraqi Kurds’ controversial referendum on independence that has angered Baghdad and the region.
A longtime Kurdish guerrilla leader, in 2005 Mr Talabani became the head of state of what was supposed to be a new Iraq two years after the country was freed from the rule of Saddam Hussein. He was seen as a unifying elder statesman who could soothe tempers among Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
He suffered a stroke in 2012, after which he was moved to Germany for treatment and faded from Iraq’s political life.
Sadi Ahmed Pire, a spokesman for the Kurdish party which Mr Talabani headed, said that his burial would take place in the city of Sulaimaniyah over the weekend.
Following news of Mr Talabani’s death, leaders across Iraq and beyond released statements expressing their condolences.
Mr Talabani was “a longstanding figure in the fight against dictatorship and a sincere partner in building a new democratic Iraq”, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider alAbadi said in a statement posted on Facebook.
Kurdish regional president and longtime Talabani rival Masoud Barzani described him on Twitter as a “comrade”.
The United Nations described Mr Talabani as “a leading voice of moderation, dialogue, mutual understanding and respect in Iraq’s contemporary politics” and a “patriot of unique wisdom and foresight”.
“From the battlefront trenches in the 1980s during the struggle against dictatorship to the halls of power in Baghdad in the past decade, ‘Mam Jalal’ worked for and promoted national rights,” said Jan Kubis, the UN’s special representative to Iraq, using Mr Talabani’s Kurdish nickname which translates as “Uncle Jalal”.