Massoud Barzani

Massoud Barzani

1st President of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region
Incumbent
Assumed office June 14, 2005
Preceded by	n/a
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	August 16, 1946 Mahabad, Iran
Political party	Kurdistan Democratic Party
Religion	Sunni Muslim

Massoud Barzani (Kurdish: مه‌سعوود بارزانی) (born August 16, 1946) is the President of the Autonomous Kurdish Government in Iraq and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He succeeded his father as the leader of the KDP in 1979. In 1995, he sent a letter asking Saddam for assistance to help reclaim the city of Erbil that had been lost by the KDP to rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by the current President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd. Saddam obliged and reclaimed the city, keeping Barzani in charge [1]. Barzani led the Kurdistan Democratic Party to establish a government in Iraqi Kurdistan with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. After the invasion of Iraq he became a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and was the president of the council for April 2004. He was elected as the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region by the Iraqi Kurdistan's Parliament in June 2005. (see [2], [3] and [4]). Barzani was born in Mahabad, Iran, during the rule of the Republic of Mahabad. He is the son of the former Kurdish nationalist leader Mustafa Barzani. He has five sons and three daughters.^{[citation needed]}