PUK Nominates Fuad Masum for Iraqi President

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) announced today that Fuad Masum, the head of Kurdish alliance bloc in Iraqi parliament, will be its candidate for Iraq’s presidency, Rudaw reported today. PUK’s announcement came a day after its leader and the current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani returned to Iraq after long absence for medical treatment. PUK traditionally fills the post of president.

Fuad Masum is a veteran Kurdish politician and senior member of PUK leadership council and has been member of Iraqi parliament since 2005 and the Head of Kurdish alliance bloc in Iraqi parliament for the last four years. 

Masum studied at Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University, where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Islamic studies. He became a member of the Iraqi Communist Party, which he left early in his career to join the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in 1964. Masum was a representative of the KDP and Mustafa Barzani in Cairo between 1973-75. He helped the reconciliation process with the PUK in the 1980s, when PUK and KDP were at war. In 1992, he became the first prime minister of Kurdistan.


UPDATE: On Monday 7/21, another PUK official, former foreign minister Barham Salih, also registered for the post of presidency. It was not immediately clear if both Salih and Masum were candidates of PUK, or if Salih was running independently.

File photo: PUK official Fuad Masum (Al Arabiya/ekurd)

Ahmadinejad Cancels Planned Visit to Baghdad

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cancelled a planned visit to Baghdad that was scheduled for this week. The presidential palace announced the cancellation today and cited the illness of his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani, as the reason. Talabani was transferred to Germany on Thursday for medical treatment after suffering a stroke last week in Baghdad. He is said to be in a coma.

Ahmadinejad had to cancel a trip to Turkey earlier this week as well after Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, warned that Turkey’s request from NATO to have Patriot missiles deployed on its soil could lead to a “world war.”



File photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (IRNA)

Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani in “Critical but Stable” Condition

Succession Issues for Iraq’s Presidency and PUK Leadership

There were conflicting reports on condition of Iraqi President Jalal Talebani. Mr. Talabani suffered a stroke late Monday and was taken to Baghdad’s Medical City hospital. Iraqi officials talking to al-Arabyia said the president was in “critical but stable condition.” Kurdish sources cited by BBC said Talabani is in a coma.

Mr. Talabani is 79 years old. Aside from being the president of Iraq, he is also the longtime leader of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the smaller of the two major political parties in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan. PUK controls Suleymaniyah and its surrounding areas. There will be a number of PUK senior members who could seek the party’s top leadership if Mr Talabani would become incapacitated to serve; among them Bahram Salih and Kosrat Rasul, former regional government premiers, and Qubad Talabani, the son of the current president and representative of Kurdish Regional Government in the U.S. PUK’s leadership Council would meet if needed to name a successor.

Nawshirwan Mustafa, the head of PUK’s splitter group Gorran, is also a major contender for the leadership of the region. Mustafa was a founder of PUK along with Jalal Talabani and Kosrat Rasul. Mustafa’s Gorran (“Change”) List won the municipal elections in Suleymaniyah in 2009 on an anti-corruption reformist platform.

Talabani’s replacement as president of Iraq will also be at play. A Kurd is expected to get the job, but the candidate needs to have the blessing of the longtime Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, the powerful overall leader of Kurdish autonomous region. But Barzani has been at odds with the central government in Baghdad over Kirkuk and other disputed oil-rich Kurdish territories, making a compromise with Iraqi premier al-Maliki on succession issue that much more difficult.

File photo: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (AP)