Tag Archives: PKK

Exploring the Omar Sheikhmous Archive, Part 4: A Guide to Kurdish Political Parties

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) – EUL MS 403/3/3

Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran

Hîzbî Dêmukratî Kurdistanî Êran‎

Persian: حزب دموکرات کردستان ایران

‎

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) was founded by Qazi Muhammed in Mahabad in 1945, and we also hold a file on the short-lived Republic of Mahabad that includes copies of periodicals published there prior to Muhammed’s execution in March 1947 (EUL MS 403/7/1/1).

The subsequent repression of the party forced it to operate underground for the next few years, surfacing occasionally for short-lived collaborations in the 1950s and 1960s. When the new Islamic regime rejected calls for Kurdish autonomy, the KDPI joined other Kurdish groups to fight the Iranian government from 1979 to 1981, a conflict that continued intermittently ever since. The KDPI remains prescribed in Iran, with many of its members taking refuge over the border in Iraq.

Most of the material held dates from the 1980s, although there are documents dated between 1978 and 1996 in the file. These include information sheets, leaflets written by KDPI activists, bulletins, press releases, open letters from the KDPI leadership, issues of periodicals and newspapers such as Kurdistan: Organî Kumîtey Nawendîye Hîzbî Dêmukratî Kurdistanî Êran, ‘Talash dar rah-I tafahum: majmu’ah-‘i asnad and Kurdistan Today, along with personal correspondence such as invitations to meetings sent to Omar Sheikhmous.

One of the most significant figures in the history of the KDPI is Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou, who led the party from from 1973 until his assassination in Vienna in 1989. There are several official KDPI communications from Ghassemlou in the file, along with a separate correspondence file (EUL MS 403/2/1/4) and cuttings on Ghassemlou’s life and death (EUL MS 403/7/5). There is also an open letter written byGhassemlou’s successor as KDPI Secretary General, Abdullah Hassanzadeh, on the subject of Iranian state terrorism with a four page list of victims and a statement about Iranian cleric and intelligence minister Ali Fallahian in relation to the ‘Mykonos’ murder of Kurds in Berlin (1996)

Komala – EUL MS 403/3/4

Society of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan

Komełey Şorişgêrî Zehmetkêşanî Kurdistanî Êran

Revolutionary Workers’ Society of Iranian Kurdistan / ‘Society of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan’

كۆمه‌ڵه‌ی شۆڕشگێڕی زه‌حمه‌تكێشانی كوردستانی ئێران كۆمه‌ڵه‌ی شۆڕشگێڕی

[NB Not to be confused with the Kurdistan Toilers’ Party, (KTP) Hizbi Zahmatkêshani Kurdistan, or Hizb al-Kadihin al-Kurdistani, which was founded in 1985 and publishes newspapers and periodicals including Alay Azadi (Banner of Freedom), Pesh Kawtin and Nojan.]

Komala means ‘group’ or ‘society’ in Kurdish, and the recurring use of the word in the names of several different political groups can be confusing.

Emerging from a student organisation in the late 1960s, the Komala party took formal shape in the late 1970s as Komełey Şorişgêrî Zehmetkêşanî Kurdistanî Êran [in Kurdish] or ‘Society of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan’ until 1984 when it became the Komala Kurdistan’s Organization of the Communist Party of Iran. It remained part of the Communist Party of Iran until 2000 when one of its leaders, Abdullah Muhtadi, led a breakaway faction named the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (Komala-PIK). Two further schisms occurred in 2007 and 2008, resulting in the creation of other Komala splinter groups led by Omar Ilkhanizade and Abdulla Konaposhi respectively.

The material we hold – which includes leaflets, press-releases, posters and booklets – spans the period between 1965 and 2009 and includes publications issued by Komala, the Communist Party of Iran and various international branches such as the Organisation of Komala Supporters Abroad.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – EUL MS 403/3/5

Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê

The PKK was founded in November 1978 in the village of Fis (near Lice), by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan. During the 1980s and 1990s it was engaged in violent conflict with the Turkish state and military authorities, but in 1999 Öcalan was captured and imprisoned, and since then he has been held in solitary confinement as the only prisoner on İmralı island in the Sea of Marmara.

We don’t hold many PKK documents but there is a large amount of secondary material on Öcalan and PKK activities in the box on the Kurds in Turkey (EUL MS 403/7/6/4), a biographical file on Öcalan (EUL MS 403/7/5) and numerous news reports in Boxes EUL MS 403/10, including statements about the PKK issued by Jalal Talabani.

Komkar EUL MS 403/3/7

The Association of Kurdish Workers for Kurdistan

Federasyona Komelên Karkerên Kurdistan [Komelên Karkerên = Kom Kar]

Among the Kurdish diaspora, it was students who were the first to start forming political organisations, beginning with the Kurdish Students Society in Europe (KSSE). In 1979 groups of Kurdish workers in Turkey came together to form ‘Komkar’, and this federation of Kurdish worker’s associations soon become widely established across Europe.

We hold papers from various European Komkar branches including statements on Kurdish and Turkish affairs, information on the 5th Komkar congress in 1983, correspondence, posters and publications.

Kurdistan Socialist Party – Iraq and related Socialist parties

EUL MS 403/3/8 and EUL MS 403/3/20

Kurdistan Socialist Party – Iraq (KSP-I)

الحزب الاشتراكي الكردستاني العراق

al-Ḥizb al-Ishtirākī al-Kurdistānī – al-`Irāq

Partiya Sosyalist a Kurdistan (PSK or PASOK)

al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Kurdi

The complicated history of the different Socialist parties involved in the Kurdish struggle requires some careful unpicking. The United Socialist Party of Kurdistan was formed in 1979 when a former KDP splinter group led by Mahmud Osman united with another group led by Socialist politician Rasul Mamand (1944–94). It was renamed the Socialist Party of Kurdistan-Iraq (KSP-I) in 1981. The party was dissolved in December 1992 when Mamand joined the PUK’s Political Bureau.

In 1993 the KSP-I was revived by a former member Mohammed Haji Mahmoud after he left the KDP, and at its second party congress the following year it changed its name to the Kurdistan Social Democratic Party (Parti Sosialiri Dimuqrati Kurdistan, Al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Dimuqrati al-Kurdistani) – which is not to be confused with the Kurdish Socialist Democratic Movement which was founded in May 1976 by Salih Al-Yousify (1918-81) from which we have a copy of a document issued in 1977.

Meanwhile in Turkey the Socialist Party of Turkish Kurdistan (SPTK) had been founded in 1974 by Kemal Burkay. The activities of the party were disrupted by the coup in 1980, with Burkay and most of its leaders forced into exile, and at the congress in 1992 it changed its name to the Socialist Party of Kurdistan.

We have a small file on the SPTK (EUL MS 403/3/20) but the folder at EUL MS 403/3/8 contains material relating to both the KSP-I and the PSK, as well as the KSDP, including party newsletters and periodicals such as Peyamî Birayetî, Rebazi-Lawan, Regay Azadi (KSP-I), Surîn and Yekgirtin (PSK), draft documents, memoriam posters, military bulletins, correspondence including an invitation from Kemal Burkay and a handwritten letter to Omar Sheikhmous from the Kurdish Socialist Party in Syria, plus various documents from the Socialist International congresses in which Jalal Talabani and other Kurds participated.

Iraqi Communist Party – EUL MS 403/3/9

Title page of the ICP newspaper Ṭarīq al-shaʻb

Arabic: الحزب الشيوعي العراقي‎

[al-Hizb al Shuyu’i al-Iraqi]

The Iraqi Communist Party was founded in 1934, emerging out of organised boycott of the British-owned Baghdad Electric Light Company. After various vicissitudes during the 1940s, it was strengthened in the early 1950s by growing support from Kurds, who gradually took over leadership roles and influenced the ICP’s approval of the principle of Kurdistan’s autonomy in their 1953 charter. Following the 1963 Baathist take-over, however, the ICP faced severe oppression from the government, and in 1967 a breakaway group (led by Aziz al-Hajj, who died earlier this year) split from the ICP and established the Iraqi Communist Party – Central Command. Weakened by the division, the ICP activities gradually focussed more on Kurdish areas and less on Baghdad. The close associaton between the Kurds and the ICP is reflected in the fact that a Kurd, Aziz Muhammad (1924-2017) was Secretary General of the ICP from 1964 until 1993.

Most of the material in this file comes from the late 1970s and the 1980s and includes several issues of ICP periodicals and newspapers such as Ṭarīq al-shaʻb and Rêyazi Pêshmerge, numerous documents on relationships with other parties, including the KDP and the PUK, the Tudeh Party in Iran, as well as other branches of the Communist Party, articles on a range of topics written by ICP members, letters, party reports and press releases.

There is also a smaller file containing seven documents relating to the Workers Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI), [in Arabic: الحزب الشيوعي العمالي العراقي‎ or al-Hizb al-Shuyu’i al-Ummali al-Iraqi, and in Kurdish: Hizbi Communisti Krekari Iraq] which was founded in 1993.

Political Alliances and Coalitions

The history of the Kurdish resistance movement has, tragically, been characterised by a great deal of in-fighting and self-destructive rivalry, by there have also been several successful attempts to bring together political groups under umbrella organisations that could consolidate opposition and strengthen cross-party collaboration. Although these alliances may not always have lasted long, they were significant steps in the development of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Democratic National Patriotic Front in Iraq – EUL MS 403/3/12

This was an umbrella opposition group founded in November 1980 and consisting of the Iraqi Communist Party, the National Union of Kurdistan and other parties. The file contains four documents, including letters to Omar Sheikhmous from the DNPF leadership (1982-83) and an information sheet (1987)

Iraqi Kurdistan Front EUL MS 403/3/13

The Iraqi Kurdistan Front (IKF) was formed in 1987-88 from the PUK, KDP and six smaller parties – including the KPDP, the KSP-I and PASOK – with the aim of uniting Kurdish factions and strengtheing opposition to the regime in Baghdad. The IKF played a major role during the ‘National Uprising’ of 1991 following the Gulf War ceasefire, as well as preparations for the general elections on 19 May 1992.

Documents include letters and proposals for the formation of the IKF, the first issue of their newspaper Berey Kurdistanî (September 1989) and joint statements by Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani regarding the forthcoming elections (1992). The IKF subsequently broke up, in part due to the ongoing tension between the KDP and the PUK.

Kurdistan National Congress – EUL MS 403/3/6

Kongreya Neteweyî ya Kurdistanê (KNK)

كۆنگرەی نەتەوەیی كوردستان

Kongreya Niştimanî ya Kurdistanê (KNK)

The Kurdish National Congress is a coalition of exiled Kurdish politicians and activists that was founded in 1999 following an initiative by the PKK that began in 1985, and absorbed the former Kurdistan Parliament in Exile.

The KNK’s first president was Ismet Cheriff Vanly (we hold a correspondence file of Vanly’s letters at EUL MS 403/2/13), who had served on the Executive Council of the previous body, and we have various documents relating to the dissolution of the Kurdistan Parliament in Exile and the draft charter for the KNK, as well as correspondence, press releases and publications.

Iraqi National Congress – EUL MS 403/3/17

المؤتمر الوطني العراقي

al-Mu’tamar al-Watani al-‘Iraqi

The history of the Iraqi National Congress is closely associated with the controversial figure of Ahmad Chalabi (1944-2015). Founded in Vienna in June 1992 as an umbrella organisation of Kurdish, Sunni and Shi’a groups opposed to Saddam Hussein’s government, the INC was comprised mainly of Kurdish exiles but received funding and support from the US government, including the CIA. Over the following decade, Chalabi and others associated with the INC played a significant role in encouraging the development of the US government’s neoconservative foreign policy towards Iraq that resulted in the 2003 invasion and the demise of Saddam Hussein.

The file includes papers from the 1992 INC congress, including a transcript of Jalal Talabani’s speech to the Opening Session, as well as a list of members of the INC, letters from Chalabi to various diplomats, press releases and documents relating to the INC’s involvement in the INDICT campaign for the prosection of Iraqi war criminals (1997).

The Independence Party of Kurdistan – EUL MS 403/3/10

Partîkarî Serbexoyî Kurdistane

The Kurdistan Independence Party was founded in Sweden between 1986 and 1989, and was dedicated to non-violent and democratic means of achieving independence for Kurdistan.

Amir Qazi (or Ghazi), Chairman of the Independence Party, was a former member of the politburo of the KDPI and married Efat (1935-1990), the daughter of Qazi Muhammad, president of the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad. She was killed in Sweden by a letter bomb addressed to her husband, and thought to have been sent by Iranian agents. The folder contains a letter from Qazi, several issues of their periodical ‘Ala’ (1986-), documents and press-releases.

Revolutionary parties – EUL MS 403/3/11

The Revolutionaries Union of Kurdistan

Yekêtî Sorisgirani Kurdistan

The Kurdish Revolutionary Party

الحزب الثوري الكردستاني

al-Hizb al-Thawri al-Kurdistani

Hizbi Shorishgeri Kurdistan

The Kurdish Revolutionary Party was founded in 1964, before temporarily merging with the KDP (1970-72) and then being revived by members who were unhappy with the KDP leadership. In 1974 it joined the Ba’ath Party approved National Progressive Front (NPF) and consequently lost much of its significance. The file includes the constitutions from 1964 and papers from the party congress in 1970 concerning its relationship with the KDP.

The Revolutionaries’ Union of Kurdistan was founded in May 1991 by an Iranian Kurd, Said Yazdanpanah, who was assassinated five months later. The organisation was then led by his brother Hussein. At a party congress in 2006 it was renamed the Kurdish Freedom Party [پارتی ئازادیی کوردستان‎] and Ali Qazi – brother of Efat, mentioned above – was elected leader.

None of these parties should be confused with Yekêtî Şorişgirani Kurdistan [Revolutionary Union of Kurdistan], which was a faction within the PUK formed around 1982 by an alignment with some Socialist groups. The file holds several letters to and from this group, with correspondents including Omar Sheikhmous, Omar Dababa, Fuad Masoum and Kemal Fuad, as well as membership booklets and other documents.

Kurdistan Democratic Progressive Party in Syria – EUL MS 403/3/16

Partiya Dîmoqratî Pêşverû Kurd li Sûriyê

Al-Hizb al-Dimuqrati al-Kurdi al-Taqaddumi fi Suriya

الحزب الديمقراطي التقدمي الكردي في سوريا

The history of the KDPPS is inseparable from the life of its leader, the late Abdul Hamid Darwish (1936-2019), who was one of the co-founders (along with Nûredein Zaza and Osman Sabri) of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria in 1957. Internal disagreements led to the KDPS splitting in 1965, with Darwish leading the more moderate and conciliatory group that became known as the Kurdistan Democratic Progressive Party. Over time the KDPPS came to align itself closely with Jalal Talabani’s PUK, while the KDPS aligned itself with Mustafa Barzani’s KDP, which would have a negative impact upon the two Syrian parties’ relations as the rivalry between the KDP and PUK developed into armed conflict.

Within Syria, however, the KDPPS continued to play an important role in both national politics and Kurdish affairs, with Darwish being elected to the Syrian parliament in 1990 and helping to establish relations between the Kurdish National Council and Syrian opposition groups. Papers in this file are dated between 1977 and 1999 and include numerous copies of the party’s newspaper al-Dimuqrati, a proclamation on the war between Kurds in Iraq and the Iraqi regime (1988), as well as documents and press-releases from the mid-1990s.

Kurdistan Popular Democratic Party (KPDP) – EUL MS 403/3/18

Hizb al-Sha’ab Dimuqrati al-Kurdistan

Parti Geli Dimukrati Kurdistan

The Kurdistan Popular Democratic Party (KPDP) was founded by Sami Abdulrahman in 1979 as a breakaway group from the KDP, which they rejoined in 1993.

Documents include various bulletins and statements issued by the party (1981-85), a list of fifteen KPDP members executed in Mosul in 1985, a supplement to the KPDP periodical ‘Gel’ on the General Scientific Conference of Kurds in the Soviet Union (1990), a photocopy of the first page of issue no 40 of Gel [ al-Sha`b], Document from the 2nd conference (1990)

Kurdistan Democratic Union – EUL MS 403/3/21

Yeketi Dimukrati Kurdistan

al-Ittihad al-Dimuqrati al-Kurdistani

The Kurdistan Democratic Union (KDU) was founded by Ali Sinjari in 1977 but was later merged with the KDP in 1993. Documents in the file include a news bulletin (1986), a leaflet Reya Yeketiye (1987), an Arabic press release published in June 1991 to mark the 14th year of the founding of the party and issue no.20 (October 1990) of the KDU periodical Al Sha’lah/Mesxel .

The National Democratic Union of Kurdistan (Yekitiya Netewayî Demokratî Kurdistan, or YNKD) was founded in 1995 by Ghafur Makhmuri – the folder contains a press release issued on 15 November 1995.

The Sheikhmous archive does include hold material relating to other political parties and movements, and there also folders containing papers from left-wing Iranian parties as well as Islamic political groups and other bodies, such as the Association of Kurdish Doctors in Europe.

The Sheikhmous papers have now been catalogued and the entries can be consulted here.

Exploring the Omar Sheikhmous Archive, Part 2: The PUK 1975-2005

Part 2: Omar Sheikhmous and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) 1975-2005

Although Mustafa Barzani had dominated the Kurdish movement since the late 1940s, there was by no means unqualified support for his leadership. Factionalism has been a constant thread throughout the history of Kurdish politics, and even when there was a strong consensus about the need to protect Kurdish rights and achieve a greater degree of autonomy, there were often strongly contrasting views about what the objectives, priorities and strategies should be for doing so. In contrast with the conservative tribal foundations of the KDP, there had long been a rival group, centred around Ibrahim Ahmed and his son-in-law Jalal Talabani, who had different ideas about what form the Kurdish resistance should take. Coming from an urban rather than a rural background, most of these men were academics with an interest in socialist theories and links to underground parties such as Komala, the Iraqi Communist Party, the Kurdish Workers’ League or the Kurdistan Socialist Movement.

The vacuum created by the collapse of the Kurdish uprising and the flight of Barzani and his followers provided the opportunity for this group to come together and establish a new Kurdish political party. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was founded in June 1975 in the wake of three separate meetings in Beirut, Berlin and Damascus – from whence Jalal Talabani issued the PUK’s first formal document. (We have a copy of the PUK’s foundation document, in Talabani’s own handwriting, at EUL MS 403/3/1/1.)

There were seven founding members – Jalal Talabani, Fuad Masoum, Kamal Fuad, Nawshirwan Mustafa, Adil Murad, Abdulrazaq Faili – and Omar Sheikhmous, creator and donor of the remarkable archive from which these materials are taken. This would therefore be a good moment to provide some more information about Sheikhmous.

Omar Sheikhmous: a brief biographical sketch

He was born in the town of Amouda in north east Syria (western Kurdistan) on 7 February 1942, and after basic education in the village school, spent seven years at a private American college in Aleppo where he learnt English and began taking an active interest in politics. He then came to England, in 1962, where he studied for the next five years: firstly taking GCEs at Acton Technical College and then working for a Diploma in International Affairs (1964-1967) at the London Institute of World Affairs, part of the University of London. Having obtained his diploma, he then moved to Sweden to begin postgraduate studies at the University of Stockholm. We have a number of his early writings from this period, including drafts of his MA and PhD theses and a questionnaire on Kurdish nationalism that he used for interviews for his thesis. There are also academic seminar papers and essays written on Kurdish politics and other Middle Eastern topics.

Sheikhmous worked on his PhD from 1972 to 1978, but broke off from academic studies to take a more active role in the Kurdish resistance following his participation in the founding of the PUK. Along with his Swedish wife Agneta, whom he had married in 1974, he joined the peshmerga forces in Kurdistan; there are many photographs of him in uniform with fellow Kurdish fighters, including Jalal Talabani, Adel Murad and Fuad Masoum. Agneta Sheikhmous was the first foreign woman to join the peshmerga, and there are several presscuttings in the archive about Agneta and her contribution to the Kurdish struggle. The PUK were based in Nawzeng, in the mountains of south-eastern Iraqi Kurdistan, but they were driven out of here in 1983 and took up a new position in the Jafati valley.

A poster by a Kurdish artist showing attacks on Kurdish villages by Iraqi planes. EUL MS 403 Box 3/2/2

This was a period of bitter fighting between the PUK and the Iraqi forces, complicated by shifting alliances between other Kurdish groups (such as the KDP-I, the remnants of the KDP, Komala and local militia). Of particular interest are a series of private military bulletins issued by the PUK, including reports on battles, communiques from the PUK Military Bureau and a letter from Nawshirwan Mustafa to a PUK military commander. These cover the period from 1976 through to the late 1980s, and are mostly in Arabic (EUL MS 403/3/1/1-3).

Although the PUK and the Iraqi government were engaged in violent conflict for much of the 1980s, there was a short period when the two sides entered into negotiations to try and find a solution. These took place between 1983 and 1985, before being broken off. There are a series of documents, including an official statement by the PUK as to why the talks had ended, along with copies of photographs showing Jalal Talabani and other PUK figures meeting with senior Iraqi officials.

This photograph was likely taken in the early 1980s, either before or during the PUK’s negotiations with the Iraqi government. In the centre of the picture can be seen Jalal Talabani standing alongside two senior figures from Iraqi military intelligence: Izzat al-Douri on his left, and alongside him, Saddam Hussein’s cousin Ali Hassan Majid. Both would later oversee the use of chemical weapons in the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds, for which Majid – known as ‘Chemical Ali’ – was hanged as a war criminal in 2010. (Photocopy of a photograph, EUL MS 403/3/1/3/1)

In addition to taking part in the PUK’s military activities, Sheikhmous was also in charge of the party’s ‘Foreign Relations Committee’ from 1975 to 1986 and there are various press releases and other correspondence items that he wrote during this time that provide fascinating insights into the Kurdish network in Europe, amongst other things. He returned to Sweden in the mid-1980s where he took an active role in working with, and for, Kurdish refugees in the country. A large section of the archive covers his correspondence with Swedish politicians, involvement in Kurdish cultural events, academic conferences and political activities that reveal the concerns and efforts of the Kurdish community in exile to support the Kurdish cause. As Christine Allison has noted in her chapter ‘The Shifting Borders of Conflict, Difference and Oppression: Kurdish Folklore Revisited’, Sweden became the centre for Kurdish cultural productions by the diasporic Kurdish community until the 1990s (Gareth Stansfield and Mohammed Shareef (eds), The Kurdish Question Revisited (2017) p.120.) The archive contains numerous examples of such cultural production, including material relating to poetry, dance, music and literature (EUL MS 403/4).

In addition to his involvement in the cultural activities of the Kurdish community in Sweden, Sheikhmous also returned to academic work, and from 1986 to 2000 worked at the Center for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations (CEIFO) in the University of Stockholm, as a researcher, lecturer and administrator. In both his academic and administrative work, he focused particularly on the human right issue, studying the experience of Kurdish migrants and refugees, as well as investigating the claims of genocidal campaigns against the Kurds in Iraq that were carried out under Saddam Hussein.

It should be understood that the aim of establishing Kurdistan as an independent nation-state has not been a dominant part of the Kurdish agenda for much of the period in question. Although there are many papers in the Sheikhmous archive arguing the need for varying degrees of autonomy or self-regulation, the most important concern has always been to secure basic human rights for the Kurdish people, including that of speaking and writing in Kurdish, using their own language to educate their children, preserving traditions and dress, and resisting attempts at forced Arabisation of their homelands. Tragically, the denial of these rights has often been accompanied by brutal forms of repression, particularly in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Due to the significance of such issues in the history of the Kurds, there is a distinct section within the Sheikhmous archive (EUL MS 403/8) dedicated to documenting matters relating to human rights. These include correspondence between Omar Sheikhmous, the PUK and the Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies during the 1970s and 1980s, appeals for medicine and aid for children, published reports by Amnesty International (to which Sheikmous has belonged since the early 1960s) and other charitable organisations, international humanitarian appeals, reports of atrocities, and records of the victims of the Anfal campaign (1986-89) and Halabja bombing (March 1988). [As a side note, there is also a section of published works in AWDU on the Kurdish Human Rights Project, including legal documentation and court proceedings, at KHRP 323.]

Sheikhmous continued his advocacy for Kurdish rights during the years (2001-2007) he spent in senior roles at the Kurdish Service of the US multimedia agency ‘Voice of America’ (VOA), providing an international platform to promote the cause of the Kurdish people and provide accurate information regarding human rights abuses and the political realities of life in Kurdistan. Sheikhmous’ work for VOA is represented in the archive by audio and video recordings, e-mail correspondence, interviews and other papers. (EUL MS 403/6.)

An undated letter to the PUK from the KDP in Syria. (EUL MS 403/3/2/1)

While Sheikhmous was devoting his energies to this work in Sweden, the PUK continued its fight in Iraq, alongside the KDP and – during the Iraq-Iran war – with Iranian support. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 led in turn to Iraq’s invasion by US-led coalition forces during the Gulf War, and following Saddam’s defeat in March 1991, the Kurds took part in an uprising against what was regarded as a weakened regime. Although the Iraqi government launched a massive retaliation against the Kurdish and Shi’ite Arab rebels, the imposition of a no-fly zone by coalition forces provided some protection for the Kurds and the Kurdistan National Assembly was established in June 1992. The Assembly was a delicate balance between representatives of the PUK, led by Jalal Talabani, and Massoud Barzani’s KDP, but the power-sharing did not last: a bitter civil war broke out between the two parties in 1994 and continued intermittently until the signing of the Washington Agreement in 1998. Thousands died during the fighting. The archive contains numerous documents relating to this civil war, including correspondence from Jalal Talabani, internal PUK communications, PUK press releases, presscuttings and commentaries, as well as parliamentary papers recording the positions and activities of PUK members within the National Assembly.

The 1998 peace agreement led to greater collaboration between the PUK and KDP, with both parties supporting the coalition forces that invaded Iraq again during the 2003 Gulf War. Following the permanent collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, a new Kurdish Regional Government was established in 2005, with Massoud Barzani elected its president while Jalal Talabani was elected President of Iraq, a position he held until 2014. Omar Sheikhmous acted as personal adviser to Talabani from 2007 to 2012 and the archive contains many papers relating to the autonomous government, including tourism pamphlets encouraging international visitors to return to Kurdistan.

The history of the PUK and the other Kurdish political groups is a complex one, of ever-shifting alliances and rivalries, schisms and reunions. The archive contains material relating to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), founded by Abdullah Öcalan in the Kurdish village of Fis – about 50 miles from the city of Diyarbakır in Turkey – in 1978. Their violent guerilla activities did not appeal to all the Kurdish groups in Turkey, and in June 1988 eight non-PKK groups came together to form TEVGER ( from Tevgera Rizgariya Kurdistan, or Kurdistan Liberation Movement). The archive has the text of an address to Tevger in Florence in 1992, that seems to have been given by Sheikhmous himself (EUL MS 403/1/7). In 2009 PUK co-founder Nawshirwan Mustafa founded a breakaway party, known as Gorran (In Kurdish بزووتنەوەی گۆڕان or Movement for Change). The archive contains many letters written by Nawshirwan Mustafa to Sheikhmous, Jalal Talabani, Kemel Fuad, Ahmad Bamerni and PUK military commanders during the 1970s and 1980s, providing some fascinating insights into the evolution of Mustafa’s political views.

In the next in this series of blogposts, we will look at the significance of the Sheikhmous archive within the wider context of contemporary Kurdish studies.