Kurdish Democratic Party

(KDP), created in 1946. It led the struggle of the Iraqi Kurds for their national rights.

The KDP actively participated in the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Iraq against colonial domination. After the July 1958 revolution the party joined the Front of National Unity. With the war against the Kurds, which was initiated in 1961 by the Iraqi government of Kassem, the KDP and its chairman, M. Barzani, led an armed struggle of the Kurdish people.

The program of the KDP, adopted at its sixth congress (held in August 1964), demanded autonomy for the Kurds within the framework of the Iraqi Republic, the establishment of a democratic regime in Iraq, the strengthening of Arab-Kurdish brotherhood, and the consolidation of the country’s national unity. At the beginning of 1970 an agreement was reached between the Kurdish leadership and the Iraqi government regarding the peaceful regulation of the Kurdish problem in Iraq. The eighth congress of the KDP (July 1970) declared itself in favor of implementing the principles contained in the declaration of the Iraqi government of Mar. 11, 1970, on the Kurdish question and establishing firm unity between Kurds and Arabs in the struggle to reinforce the national independence of the Iraqi Republic. In 1970 five ministers from the KDP were included within the Iraqi government. The KDP publishes the newspaper At-Taakhi in Arabic.