SUMMARY
PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) was an Iraqi organisation with the aim of securing autonomy or minority rights for the Kurdish people in Iraq. Formed in 1975, the activity of the organisation was primarily focused on an armed struggle against the Iraqi government, while the group after the ousting of the Saddam Hussein administration in 2003 transformed into a political party.
PUK was formed in 1975 in exile in Damascus, Syria, by a breakaway faction of KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) led by Jalal Talebani; the Iraqi Komala organisation, and the Socialist Movement of Kurdistan party. Talebani had been part of the KDP Politburo faction that unsuccessfully had tried to take control of the organisation in 1966-1970. The discontent was based in claims that Mustafa Barzani, KDP president, was more concerned with the power allocated to the Barzani clan than KDP policy, and also that Barzani did not embrace the socialist program promoted by the Talebani faction. The immediate circumstances for the formation of PUK was the withdrawal of Iranian and US support to KDP following the signing of the Algiers accord, an Iran-Iraq border treaty, in March 1975. As a consequence, most oppositional Iraqi Kurds fled into exile, and the PUK was created as a socialist umbrella organisation intent on reorganising the struggle for Kurdish autonomy.
Immediately on formation, PUK received support in the form of training and weaponry from Syria. PUK were mostly reluctant to accept support from Iran out of solidarity with the opposition in the conflict Iran (Kurdistan). However, PUK signed a brief cooperation agreement with Iran in 1986 and eventually also reconciled with KDP to form a joint military front against the Iraqi government in February 1987. The so-called Iraqi Kurdistan Front disintegrated in 1994, but PUK continued to receive occasional support from Syria, Iran, and allegedly also the USA.
Following the defeat of Iraq in the interstate conflict against Australia, the UK, and the USA in 2003, PUK as well as KDP forces became integrated into the new Iraqi security apparatus. In the post-Saddam elections in Iraq, the two organisations participated jointly as the “Kurdistan alliance” and Jalal Talebani became president of Iraq in March 2005. He had remained the leader of PUK ever since the organisation was formed twenty years earlier.
PUK has been involved in the intrastate and non-state categories of UCDP organised violence.
