SUMMARY
KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party; Partiya Demokrata Kurdistan) was the first Kurdish political organisation in Iraq, founded in 1946. Its founder was Mullah Mustafa Barzani. The formation of the political organisation had been preceded by other Kurdish political moves. Already in 1930 a letter had been sent to the League of Nations by a number of Kurdish declaring that their national rights were not respected and that they refused to be part of the Iraqi state that was to be formed. Mullah Mustafa Barzani, went further than the letter and demanded, in 1943, the creation of a Kurdish province with an official cabinet. He supported the formation of the Iranian Kurdish group, KDPI, which unilaterally declared a Kurdish province in Iran early in 1946. After an Iraqi branch of the KDPI was set up, Mullah Mustafa Barzani led the formal splinter of this branch to form the KDP. The demands for a Kurdish province continued to not be met during the reign of the Hashemite king in Iraq, which led to Kurdish support of the 1958 revolution. However history appeared to repeat itself and the 1958 revolution did not leave the Kurdish population in a better position. After the Ba’ath party came to power in the 1968 revolution there were, again, some hopes but these soon vanished. Even though KDP received three ministry positions the internal cleavage, between Barzani on one hand and Jalal Talebani on the other, left the Kurdish population without any progress on their demands for autonomy.
Iran and USA were initially supporting KDP, as they shared a mutual enemy in the Iraqi government. By 1975 however, as a result of the Algiers accord between Iran and Iraq, Iran and the USA withdrew their support for KDP. Following the withdrawal of the support a group of former KDP members, led by Jalal Talebani, broke away and formed a splinter group, PUK (Yekitiya Nistimaniya Kurdistan; Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). In 1979 Mustafa Barzani was succeeded by his son Massoud Barzani as the leader of KDP. Though the relationship between KDP and PUK continued to be tense they were able to reconcile and form a united front against the Iraqi government in 1987. The alliance however broke in the 1990s, during which time KDP and PUK clashed on several occasions. For a brief period KDP even joined forces with Baghdad in an attempt to defeat KDP but following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 both leaders of KDP and PUK have received high positions in the Iraqi and Kurdish administrations respectively. Barzani has since 2005 been President of the Iraqi Kurdistan and was again elected in 2009, that time by popular vote.
KDP has been involved in the intrastate and non-state categories of UCDP organised violence.
