SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan Region on Sunday commemorated the fourth anniversary of the passing of Mam Jalal Talabani.
Former Iraqi President and Secretary-General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Mam Jalal died in Germany on October 3, 2017.
Talabani is known among the Kurds as Mam Jalal or Uncle Jalal.
He was the first elected non-Arab president of Iraq who oversaw the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Talabani was elected as the Iraqi president in 2005 and re-elected for a second term in 2010.
He is also known for his pragmatic and compromising politics that set a balance between Iraq’s various components, including Arabs and Kurds, Shia and Sunni Arabs.
Talabani is portrayed as a Kurdish leader who sacrificed his entire life to achieve the cultural and national rights of the Kurds.
On Sunday, people and PUK officials visited the tomb of Mam Jalal in Sulaimani city, paying tributes to the late president to mark the fourth anniversary of his death.
“Four years passed since your last farewell, but the grief of loosing you and the gap that was made still feel like the day when we all wore black after hearing your passing,” said his son Qubad Talabani, who is deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Region.
“You haven’t been with us physically during this period, so we learned more than ever your importance and the effects of your political life … We have been running for four years but we cannot completely fill the gap left behind you,” he added.
Separately, PUK Politburo said Mam Jalal was a leader of the new revolution for people and a pillar for enhancing democracy in Iraq, the Middle East and the world.
“… He always put his abilities and talents in the service of the just Kurdish cause, the development of the Kurdish community, and the issue of social justice and democracy of the country,” it said in a statement on Saturday night that.
“He was also the protection of national principles and a symbol for the protection of expression of opinion and public freedoms. He was against injustice, occupation and social, national, religious and sectarian operation,” it added.
“Today, Free Kurdistan and a democratic and federal Iraq, that possesses sovereignty and a road map represented by the constitution, are the fruit of the political and intellectual struggle of Mam Jalal and other founding fathers of democratizing Iraq and Kurdistan.”
