Open letter
to all Kurdish people and their friends all over the world

These days I would like to send best congratulations to all Kurdish people for two important historical events that constitute an encouraging beginning to establish a Kurdistan state. First of those is the proximity of mercy killing of what is left from the Iraqi authority in Kurdistan, which had been effectively nonexistent since 1991. However, this time it will be forever as the coming American strike would coincide with the meeting of the united Kurdistan Parliament on 4/10/2002. The most important thing in this historical meeting was its holding under the sacred flag of Kurdistan for the first time, so many congratulations and for that reason the Kurdistan National Congress is intensifying activities and communications in this sensitive circumstances to follow the events and latest developments. To contact all major powers in the world, governments, organisations and personalities as well as holding meetings, conferences, seminars and interviews on radio and TV. On 24/8/2002, the KNC organised an exceptional conference of its UK branch. The conference received hundreds of letters of support and congratulations, among which, from such personalities as the symbol figure of liberty in the world Mr Nelson Mandela, and from the head of British government Mr Tony Blair. Mr Ghassan Karian, the Mayor of Hammersmith & Fulham (where the conference was held), officially opened the conference. Dr Jemal Nebez and Bruska Ibrahim (engineer) attended the conference from Germany, and Dr Abdulrazaq Nimatullah from Italy, there were also representatives of many parties and organisations among them Mrs Bayan Salih representing the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Mr Muhammad Qaradaghi representing the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Mr Abbas Rostam representing the Communist Party of Kurdistan. In addition, the committees of the KNC organised four public meetings during one week and participated in a fifth meeting organised by Mr. Jalal Barzani for Dr. Jemal Nebez in the city of Hannover in Germany on 22/9. The other four were in the city of Dortmund in Germany organised by Mr. Risgar Kasem and Mr. Marwan Ali on 23/9, in the city of Mannheim in Germany organised by Ing. Swara Arif and Dr. Shirwan Mohidien on 25/9, in the city of Zurich in Switzerland organised by Mr. Hamid Suri and Dr. Fauzi Kaddur on 27/9 and in the city of Milan in Italy organised by Mr. Dr. Azzat Saydo on 28/9. I also had two interviews on the Kurdish Radios in Hannover and Zurich. The KNC also is gathering signatures from Kurdistan and friendly foreign personalities and parties. Up to now, we have received 1500 signatures demanding a Kurdish representative in the UN. Anyone who wishes to receive the letter addressed to Mr Kofi Annan, the General Secretary of the UN in order to sign it, can print it from the internet from our website on www.knc.org.uk, or from offices of the KNC all over the world. And return it to us after signing as the KNC intends to send all those signatures to Mr Kofi Annan soon.

Before getting to the point of this article I would like to mention a short historical background. After the Ottoman Empire was defeated at the end of World War I, the British and French winners acquired the right to divide and share the previous possessions of the losers such as the Turks and Germans. Kurdistan was a part of the Ottoman Empire, and as according to several treaties and agreements such as Sykes-Picot, Lausanne and Saint Remo, the Arabs were divided into several states, the Kurdish homeland, Kurdistan, was divided into parts, but without forming any Kurdish states. Parts of Kurdistan were awarded as an international colony to such artificially created states as Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and to the previous Soviet Union as presents. Not even one inch of Kurdistan was left under Kurdish administration. All this was carried out in such an evil and disgraceful manner that no other people previously had been subjected to such an unjust division. The situation became even more complicated as since then i.e. during the cold war and prior to it, the loyalties of those states sharing Kurdistan were divided between those friendly to the United States of America and those against her. As the world itself since was divided in such manner, and the states occupying Kurdistan were of both kinds, the whole world ended up against the establishment of a Kurdish independent state in order to satisfy those occupiers of Kurdistan one way or the other.

The Kurdish cause during the past hundred years has passed various stages of difficulties, depending on the international circumstances or the level of efficiency of the Kurdish leadership. However, the Kurdish people in those years did not have the national awakening, so while the Kurds were fighting and showing their defiance, offering huge sacrifices in order to carry out the will of the leaders or the international and regional politics. We find that as soon as the leader of that particular revolution is martyred or imprisoned, or decided to stop leading the revolution, it is inevitable that what follows is the collapse of the revolution until some other leader comes and declares a new revolution. Thus because of lacking prior planning and a clear programming from the start, the revolution remained as something depending on chaotic circumstances.
The Kurdish people are courageous, generous people, who are capable of unlimited sacrifices, but they have not put these good attributes into a national frame considering the highest national interest and national security of the Kurdish nation. Had they put those aims into their prospective, they would have set a program to end the persecution, extermination and displacement imposed to the Kurdish people for ages. The fulfilment of these aims has to be by establishing an independent Kurdish state, and such Kurdish state will not be reached by carrying arms against the occupiers as a reaction to their killing, burning and distraction policies, and cooling down or stopping the revolution whenever, for some reasons, the occupiers stop their actions. The Kurdish people have not yet started carrying the full national responsibility to plan for the establishment of the independent state of Kurdistan.

Our homeland Kurdistan has a civilisation going back to thousands of years. It is rich with resources and minerals as well as its strategic position. These characteristics made Kurdistan a target for regional and international ambitions. Every Kurd should have his own share of this homeland. No one should have larger or smaller share. Every Kurd for the homeland Kurdistan and the homeland for every Kurd. A Kurd should not decline his share and part of the homeland, and not to let others think for him in finding solutions for Kurdistan's future. It is time that Kurds have their say in what is right for Kurdistan in its future to emphasize their position in the world as a people with 40 million population still seeking national independence and getting rid of colonialism and partition, and make it clear that we are not a minority that lives in states here and there begging for miser rights.
It is only because of the constant psychological war declared on the Kurdish people by states and regimes that occupy Kurdistan that since the World Word II, the Kurds are just asking for such miser rights. Those regimes try their best to deform the Kurdish identity and break their will by turning them into week and wobbly personalities with no willpower in all aspects. That is why some Kurdish organisations and personalities came to the point that they mock the word independence and any mention of a Kurdish state.

I stress that the powers that occupied Kurdistan had succeeded largely in their psychological warfare against the Kurdish people. In order to explain this I would like to bring sum examples:

1-The Kurdish Prince Badirkhan Pasha defeated the Ottoman Empire militarily 150 years ago and gained the independence for his state for more than ten years, and issued Kurdish currency. Also Prince Muhammad Al-Rawandozi who established a factory to produce Kurdish cannons. And the King of Kurdistan Sheikh Mahmood Al-Hafeed who declared the Kurdistan kingdom under the bombing by British planes. All this and today we are under the protection of the British and American planes without having been able to declare such a state as Sheikh Mahmood did in the beginning of the last century or issue Kurdish currency, or produce cannons as our ancestors did centuries ago.

2-In 1912 a Turkish military division kidnapped Prince Abdulrazzaq Badirkhan from the town of Tabriz, which is situated in Iran. He was taken as a prisoner to Turkey, which was the Ottoman Empire at the time. As soon as the renowned Kurdish leader Ismail Agha Shikak heard this news, he rose to the rescue of the Kurdish prince, although he was not related to him in any way, tribally, regionally or politically. Simko Agha, as he was popularly called, was not a head of state but he was a tribal leader whose tribe Shikak, compared with other Kurdish tribes may not have been among the biggest, however, the national duty pushed him to enter Turkey leading a force of heroic Shikaki musketeers to challenge the Ottoman Empire and ambush the Turkish force, which surrendered. Simko Agha was about to kill all the members of the Turkish force, if it was not for the intervention by Prince Abdulrazzaq himself who asked him not to do so. The prince was returned to Tabriz safe and free. This incident has been documented in the tsarian Russia's documents released recently. After one hundred years from that we see that the Turks carried out a similar operation against the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, Mr Abdullah Ocallan, however instead of trying to free Ocallan, the Kurds torched themselves.

3-The founder of the Kurdish diplomacy, General Sharif Pasha who was the only Kurd in Europe a hundred years ago, managed to use his high ranked diplomacy to convince the peace conference of 1919 in Paris, by writing his famous memorandum accompanied by the flag and map of greater Kurdistan. His diplomatic actions lead the allied forces to sign the famous international treaty "Sevres Treaty" in 1920, which stated clearly the right for the Kurdish people to establish their own independent state. Now there are more than one million Kurds in Europe, but have not managed anything like what was managed by General Sherif Pasha.

Thus if we want our state we have to identify the enemies of the Kurdish people. In addition, they are those who occupy any part of Kurdistan, however little that part. This way we can also identify the friends of Kurdish people as those who are outside this circle. We have also to prepare professional nationalist force inside Kurdistan, and a Kurdish lobby internationally to support the independence of Kurdistan. However, the most important thing is to forbid killing any Kurd by making it the basic principle as a sin that could not be forgiven and to punish anyone who carries it out no matter how long the time passes. Another point is the respect for free speech. All these things are part of the national security of the Kurds and the nationalistic ideology of the Kurds established by all ancient writers and thinkers, first of whom was the famous philosopher Ahmad Khani, and all the Kurdish leaders who practised the Kurdish ideology in their everyday life. There was a wonderful and true patriotic respect between them, such as between the two glorious leaders, the martyr Qazi Muhammad and Sheikh Mahmood Hafeed. Also as between the Barzani sheikhs and Nehri sheikhs. Moreover, the national congress held by Sheikh Ubaidullah Nehri, and Khoebun party that was established after a general conference between all Kurdistan personalities and organisations. This was a background for the two parties J.K. and KAJYK. KAJYK put the nationalist ideology into its philosophical frame. Although these organisations are no longer active, their ideological momentum is still there and strong. Because they were expressing the things that are in conscience and soul of the Kurdish people. I would like here to mention what the deceased leader Mella Mustafa Barzani said when he received a complaint against the martyr Fatah Agha, commander of Khabat forces (with about 6000 Kurdish freedom fighters, it was one of the main military divisions of the Kurdish Revolution 1961-1975) that Fatah Agha and the leadership of Khabat forces have turned all their members into KAJYK. Barzani asked the complainer about what KAJYK is. He answered that: "KAJYK is aiming to unite all parts of Kurdistan and establish a Kurdish state". Barzani said: "How many are in the leadership of Khabat forces". He was told: "Six." Barzani said: "From now on make them seven." When asked who would be the seventh, he said:"Put down my name with them, because what is better than uniting Kurdistan and having our own state? This was the way the glorious Barzani was responding to those sick people with bad intentions trying to smear the symbols of faithfulness to the nationalist ideology. It is worth to mention that during a half century of its activities never happened that KAJYK collaborated with any occupying countries of Kurdistan. I was honoured to be a member of KAJYK until its activities were frozen in 1975.

Glorious Barzani was as a personality acting as a nationalist umbrella covering the Kurdish people from all parts, and all ideologies and political currents. This what I felt and saw when I met Barzani himself on several occasions in the beginning of seventies. However, the Kurdish liberation movement since glorious Barzani lost its unity and dispersed into many parties and power centres with no cooperation and fighting sometimes. When I was in southern Kurdistan in 1982-1984, as a member of the political bureau of PASOK party, and member of leadership of the JUD Front, and when I arrived in Europe I became convinced that it is impossible to put all the Kurdish people into one party and no party could be ignored. That is why there was the idea for a new nationalist umbrella organisation. In 1985, the Kurdistan National Congress was established to unify the Kurdish powers, with only one condition to join which is belief and action for an independent Kurdish state. The KNC has a characteristic of being managed and led by free independent patriotic persons. Thus, it is completely forbidden that any particular party might control the KNC, especially when there is animosity between that party and other parties. As such a Congress would inevitably fail because it would turn into a party institution and not a national congress. However, the Kurdistan parties would maintain their role and status in the congress according to the constitution, which was published as a book by the KNC along with several other books such as my book:"Kurdistan and Kurds, a divided homeland and a nation with no state" And the books of the founder of the Kurdish nationalist ideology Dr. Jemal Nebez such as: "National Ideology" and "The Identity and the Cause of the Kurdish Nation", and also the book "Modernisation and Liberation" by Sheikh Omar Gharib who explains Islam in a Kurdish way, saying among other things: "it is not allowed to pray in an occupied land as Kurdistan". And several other valuable books printed by the KNC or soon to be printed to become text books in institutions for nationalist cadres to be opened in all European countries.

The Western Kurdistan Association in London is one of the organisations members of the KNC. It produced a number of Kurdish films. One of those was "Asylum" in cooperation with a British company about the situation of Kurdish refugees in Europe. The director of the film, Mr Nigel Barker, asked me:"Can you describe a Kurdish refugee?" I told him: "Here in Europe there are refugees from all over the world all of whom have their passports with their nationality indicated in them, except for the Kurds who had no Kurdish passports and no independent state. Even dogs and cats in Britain have necklaces indicating their kind, but the Kurdish people with population of 40 million have no document stating that they are Kurds. Therefore, we Kurds have not reached the status of dogs and cats in your country." Mr Nigel was impressed with this and said: "It is a wonderful image, and I will use it in the film, because it would raise the feelings of the Europeans in favour of the Kurdistan cause." The film will be shown soon on the British TV and European and other international movie festivals.

I did not hesitate to say the above regarding Kurdish refugees because the Arabisation, Turkisation and Iranisation, as well as actions such as burning 380 Kurdish children in Amouda city and killing Kurdish people of Halabja city, using chemicals used to exterminate rats. In addition, destroying Kurdish villages while displacing their population to no particular place are all methods, which are no longer used even against wild or domesticated animals. I have contacted animal rights organisations in Europe several times to mention that Kurds as humans are facing extermination as many animal species. I was told that is right, however, we are specialised in defending animals only. I would say which one is more important and they answer of course the human being but we defend the animals because they have no tongues to defend themselves and express their suffering. Thank God, we are humans and have tongues to express our tragedy and demand our Kurdish state. I am sure if 40 million Kurds they say what is in their mind it would be enough to gain our independence. At the same time we need the great powers in the world to support our demand.

This is what the KNC is aiming for to find a common language in expressing the aspirations of the Kurds and Kurdistan. The events after the September 11 catastrophe are accelerating, and the Kurdish people have the chance because the USA are determined to strike at the axis of evil represented by Iraq Syria and Iran. Recently Turkey has been partially isolated from the American plans and little by little approaching the axis of evil. Therefore, it is time that the Kurds stand in one front and show the Americans that they are an axis of good. Moreover, the axis of evil has been using the resources of Kurdistan to empower themselves, so, the best way to weaken them is by establishing the greater Kurdistan state.

In these circumstances, I would expect that soon America and the UN would ask the Kurdish people the following questions:

1-What do you want? The answers will come in dozens of forms, starting by democratic rights or cultural rights, or social rights, to decentralisation or autonomy, or federalism, or co federalism, up to a Kurdish state. Some would say that the countries occupying Kurdistan are artificial states and aggressors, others would regard those aggressors as brothers of the Kurdish people and the problems between them are merely internal, therefore those stand against any foreign intervention.
2-Who is your leader? There would be a long list of names.
3-What are the colours of your flag? There would be several flags. Some saying it is the same historical flag used by General Sharif Pasha, General Ihsan Noori, Prince Jaladat Badirkhan and Qazi Muhammad. This is the same flag used by Mr Masood Barzani in the Kurdistan parliament and all over Kurdistan. However, some would use it without a sun in the middle or put a red star instead. There are also some who put a sickle and a hammer as the Kurdistan flag..
4-What are the geographical features of Kurdistan? There are different maps such as the one issued by the Kurdish Institution in Paris or Kurdish Institution in Berlin, or geographers in other countries who published dozens of maps. Unfortunately, none of them is like the other as some of them make Kurdistan very small and others make it big etc.
5-What is the population of the Kurds? Some would say 25 millions or 30, or 40 millions and others like Mr Bashir Mushir would say the number of Kurds is 80 millions and if you do not believe me go and count them!

Thus, such kind of things cannot be settled without a national organisation such as the KNC to re-establish the national umbrella that covers the entire Kurdish people, so that the Kurdish people would have a central point of reference.

We should have one program and one political language to communicate with the international community. We should carry out a general referendum under the monitoring of the UN. In order to get our state, we have to prepare for it by forming a government in exile to represent 40 million Kurds and use the opportunity to move into Kurdistan. The intended government in exile would not contradict the government in Southern Kurdistan but a complementary one. We are also working towards convincing the UN that the Kurds should have representatives as monitors such as the Palestinian people and Polisario who also have no state. Up to now the members of the UN rely on the enemies of the Kurdish people, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey to give them information regarding the Kurds, which is an unnatural situation.

Certainly, no one thinks that Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran are stronger and larger than the Soviet Union, and it is time that they should be abolished, and by establishing a Kurdish state, they would return to their normal sizes.

Using dialogue, diplomacy, unity of the Kurds and international law we shall gain our independence.

What is giving optimism is the relief of the tension between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, and the united meeting of the Kurdistan Parliament, which gives us a hope to take advantage from the international situation. I congratulated the united Parliament in my interview with Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 2/10/02, when I asked to add to the unity of Parliament the unity of the armed forces by creating a national Kurdistan army. I agree with Mr Jalal Talabani when he said: "If the Iraqis or others come to Kurdistan for trading or visiting we welcome them, but for occupation we don't". Moreover, with Mr Masood Barzani saying: "If the Turkish army enters Kurdistan, we would turn Kurdistan into a graveyard for the Turks". Our independence is bound to our unity.

The stage covered by the writing of the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is part of that era and namely the time of September Revolution 1961-1975 under the leadership of Mella Mustapha Barzani in Southern Kurdistan.
Southern Kurdistan was annexed to the Iraqi state after bloody battles between the British forces and Iraqi forces on the one hand and the Kurdish forces led by the King of Kurdistan Sheikh Mahmood Al-Hafid, who was injured in one of those battles and captured. He was then exiled to India, while Iraq itself had no king and the English were forced to bring a prince from Hijaz, Prince Faisal Bin Sharif Hussein, and appoint him as a King in Iraq and that part of Kurdistan.

Since 1918, the allied forces had admitted the national aspirations of those minorities of Ottoman Empire as they were mentioned in President Wilson's peace program: "The non-Turkish minorities within the Ottoman Empire should be given a real opportunity to practise their own independence away from any intervention or influence." Also the article 22 of the League of Nations states: "The method to achieve these principles is through creating the mandate system." Those directions in addition to efforts from General Sharif Pasha resulted in Sevres Treaty, which was enforced on the Ottoman Sultan in 1920 to recognise a Kurdish state. However, Mustafa Kamal managed in 1923 to use his manoeuvres and deception to replace the Sevres Treaty with Lausanne Treaty, which did not mention anything about a Kurdish state. But the Mosul Wilayet was not included in this treaty and was left to negotiations between Turkey and Britain as the country with the mandate on Iraq, to decide its fate. Those negotiations failed to get a result and the case of Mosul Wilayet was referred back to the League of Nations, which in turn gave it to Iraq on the following condition:

"The rights of Kurds should be considered to appoint administrators of Kurdish ethnicity to manage the affairs of their country and carrying out judicial affairs and education in schools, and Kurdish language should be an official language."
In 1931 when Iraq was trying to join the League of Nations, and to show good intentions, a law was introduced regarding the local languages. In 1932 after the end of the British mandate and acceptance of Iraq as a member of the League of Nations, Iraq announced these principles again in an official statement, which was given the power of constitution and forwarded to the League of Nations to be considered as an international document.
Perhaps one of the most important documents of that era was the joined statement of Iraq and Britain of December 1922, on the eve of the negotiations regarding the Lausanne Treaty, which stated:

Her Majesty's government and the government of Iraq admit and recognise that the Kurds have the right of coexistence within the Iraqi borders and have the right of establishing a Kurdish government within these borders. The two governments hope that the Kurdish sides concerned come to agreement among themselves in regard to the form of this government and the borders they want it to cover, and to send their negotiating representatives to Baghdad to discuss their economical and political relations with Her Majesty's government and the Iraqi government".
The founding of the Iraqi Republic in 1958 was also a large quality step in this regard, as the Article Three of Iraqi constitution stated that: "Arabs and Kurds are partners in this homeland"

Obviously, partnership means in reality a state, because a real partner, whose interests are not satisfied, can dissolve the partnership so that each partner may be free in his own land.

With regard to the historic document known as the announcement of 11 March 1970, we can confirm that it was a big achievement for the September revolution and all Kurdish people in general.

However, all those treaties and announcements became worthless after the crimes of mass extermination, which were committed by the Iraqi government against the Kurdish people. Such crimes include especially the chemical attack on the town of Halabja on 16/3/1988 and the Anfal operations of autumn 1988 during which 182,000 Kurds were exterminated.

On this basis Iraq violated the conditions by which Kurdistan was affiliated to it, which was to allow a Kurdish government and respect the national rights of the Kurdish people. Instead, the government of Iraq had committed, intended, and planned crimes of mass murder against the Kurdish people and thus Iraq has lost its right to rule Kurdistan both on legal or humanitarian purposes. It was not only Iraq that opposed the aspirations of the Kurdish nation, but also Turkey, Syria and Iran were and still share and support Iraq in this regard. Even during the Iraq - Iran war, the two countries were exchanging information about the activities of Kurdish organisations. All those countries that occupy a part of Kurdistan are against each other almost in everything, but they always agree on one thing, which is not to allow the Kurdish people to obtain any ethnic rights.
Unfortunately, many other neighbouring countries support those anti-Kurdish tendencies without any consideration to the fact that the Kurdish people are demanding only their just right of having their own state and identity, which will eventually be achieved for sure, as it happened to Algeria against France or the United States against Britain in their struggle for independence.

I must here point to the fact that there are many honest Arabs, Turks and Iranians who believe in an independent Kurdish state, among them first of all is the Libyan leader Moamar Al-Qaddafi, who has been advocating for more than a quarter century to: "let the Kurds to establish their own state". The Turkish academic Dr. Ismael Besikci has spent many years of his life in Turkish prisons because of his supporting stand with the Kurds and his book entitled: "Kurdistan - an international colony". There is also the Arab thinker Dr. Abdulhussein Shaban, who stated in an article of the newspaper Media, the organ of the National Democratic Union of Kurdistan, that: 'any Kurd that does not believe in a Kurdish state is an idiot person". The Iraqi opposition activist Mr Mishan Al-Jibury stated in an interview with Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel, with evidence and arguments that: "I support a Kurdish state because it is not against the Arabs." The Iraqi Islamic scholar Dr. Muhammad Al-Mahdi wrote an article in Al-Tayyar Al-Jadid newspaper, issued by Mr. Sami Faraj Ali in London during the eighties of the last century entitled "A smaller Iraq is a stronger Iraq". The Egyptian Islamic scholar Dr. Fahmi Al-Shinawi has stressed in his articles and letters the rights of the Kurds as an Islamic duty. One of his letters was to the Second Kurdistan National Congress in 1991 in London in which he said: "There is no Islamic unity without a Kurdish unity", and many other honest and courageous people.

During these international circumstances there have been many historical leaders such as the late Mella Mustapha Barzani, who is a legendary figure and one of those classic Kurdish leaders of the Kurdish people, who stands side by side with such greats of the Kurdish nation as Sheikh Saeed Peeran 1925, Sheikh Mahmood Al-Hafid 1919, Qazi Muhammad 1946, General Ihsan Nouri Pasha 1927, General Sharif Pasha Khandan 1919, Prince Bedirkhan the Great 1842, Ismael Shikak (Simko Agha) 1930, Prince Muhammad Rawanduzi 1826, Sayed Raza 1939, and others, as well as Apo Osman Sabri 1905-1993, the founder of the political struggle school, Prince Jeladet Bedirkhan 1951, who founded the Kurdish alphabet, and Dr. Jemal Nebez, who put the philosophical frame to the Kurdish nationalist thinking, and many others who were activists for the independence of Kurdistan.

The late Barzani asked the United States for support for the independence of Kurdistan, as he asked all the super powers in the world whenever he had the opportunity. Although he was the leader of Democratic Party of Kurdistan that was demanding only autonomy for Kurdistan, he was in reality not only that or a leader of the Kurds in Southern Kurdistan; he was in fact a national leader of all Kurdish people. Barzani was indeed a representative of the Kurdish nation's conscience, as he participated in 1946 in establishing the Republic of Kurdistan in Eastern Kurdistan; and led several Kurdish uprisings in Southern Kurdistan; mainly and the longest standing was the September Revolution of 1961. His national practice was always an expression of what was his feeling, for example: he appointed Prince Kamiran Bedirkhan, who was from Northern Kurdistan as a first representative of the September Revolution; Dr. Ismat Sharif Wanli as a second representative who was from Western Kurdistan. In addition, the most confidant and favourite writer and poet of the late Barzani was Hazhar Mukriani, who was from Eastern Kurdistan.

Indeed Barzani was a national leader and represented the aspirations of the Kurdish people for independence. This is exactly what is stated in the memoirs of Henry Kissinger on page 23. The fact that the independence of Kurdistan was not achieved was not at all a fault of Barzani, but the international circumstances prevented it, especially the cold war between the Soviet Union and the USA, which escalated to divide their influence in the areas such as Vietnam, Algeria, Palestine, Congo, Cuba etc.
The fate intervened to prevent the fulfilment of Barzani's dreams, when the American president Richard Nixon was impeached in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, as President Richard Nixon was concerned with the Kurdish file more than any other previous president of the USA.

It is clear that the memoirs of Mr Henry Kissinger throw lights on many angles and positions regarding the September revolution and its international and regional relations, many parts of which remain unknown. It is our duty to uncover all the details in order to benefit from that rich experience in the future to fulfil the dreams of the late Barzani for the independence of Kurdistan. In order to achieve the independence for Kurdistan we have to know all strong or weak points in our history of uprisings. It is only through the weapon of science and knowledge, and by creating honest, courageous and knowledgeable national cadres, we can achieve a Kurdish state. For the loyalty to Kurdistan is achieved through knowledge of Kurdistan itself.

Jawad Mella
President
Kurdistan National Congress