نشریه مطالعات سیاست خارجی تهران
پیاپی 12 (بهار 1398)

Yusuf Mohammad, former Kurdistan Region Parliament Speaker and current representative of Sulaymaniyah in the Council of Representatives of Iraq, is one the young politicians who has started his political career with Goran Movement. He is one of the prominent figures of the Goran Movement and has Ph.D. in international relations. When the conflicts between the Goran Movement and Kurdistan Democratic Party (Party), led by Masoud Barzani, escalated, Peshmerga military forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party illegally stopped Yusuf Mohammad's car near Erbil on the way to the Parliament and didn't let him enter the Parliament building. This led to a two-year shut-down of the Kurdistan Re gion Parliament, and a while later Yusuf Mohammad resigned to show his protest against the Party's politics. He nominated himself in the fourth cycle of the Iraqi Parliament and got elected by the votes of the people of Kurdistan Region, and is currently the head of Goran Movement parliamentary group in Iraqi Parliament. He considers the formation of Kurdistan Region structure inside the Iraqi ruling framework as a significant achievement for Iraqi Kurds, and regards the lack of a national document for Kurdistan Region in the Constitution as a flaw. He assesses the holding of a referendum as a fatal political error and maintains that it has damaged Kurdistan Region's foreign relations and has internationally underestimated Kurdistan Region's status. The Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly interviewed him to examine his views about the regional changes and his evaluations of the Kurdish parties' achievements and challenges in Iraq.

Dr. Kamal Kirkuki was born in 1954 in Kirkuk city in Iraq. He studies medicine at university and was arrested and then imprisoned in Qasr al-Nahayah Prison during that time because of oppositional political activities against the Ba'ath regime. He was active in both military and political posts of and Kurdistan Democratic Party (Party) after he was released from prison, and has been active as deputy minister and Parliament representative after 1992 and the formation of and Kurdistan Region Cabinet. He was parliament speaker of and Kurdistan Region from 2009 to 2011. He is a member of the political bureau of and Kurdistan Democratic Party (Party) and the head of management council for Kirkuk and Garmiyan.

Dr. Mahmoud Othman was born in 1938 in an indigent family in Penjwin in Iraqi Kurdistan. He was 17 and still studying in high school when he became a member of Kurdistan Democratic Party. In 1956, while studying medicine at Baghdad University, he became the secretary of Kurdish Students' Union. He completed his degree in medicine in 1961 and received first class honors, and two years later went to Kurdistan mountainous areas to join the forces of Mulla Mustafa Barzani, the first leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party, as a Peshmarga and a doctor. He earned a good reputation with Mullah Mustafa and was elected as one of the leaders of Iraqi Kurds' revolution in 1964. He went to Europe and the US during the years between 1965 and 1967 as a representative of the Kurds' movement. He was always with Mullah Mustafa till 1975 as his translator, doctor and advisor. He then got elected as the chief negotiator in the agreement ceasefire between the Kurdish region and the Ba'ath Party and negotiated with Saddam Hussein and his deputies. Mahmoud Othman secretly went to the US with Mullah Mustafa's eldest son, Idris Barzani, to form the Kurdish Movement's relations with Washington. He returned to Iraqi Kurdistan after Mullah Mustafa's movement fell apart. He worked as a mediator for seven years and tried to put a stop to Kurdistan parties' internal disagreements and conflicts. In 2002, he played an important role to level the path of removing Ba'ath Regime in Iraqi opposition forces conference in London. In 2003, he got elected as a member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council. He has been active as a member of the Kurdistan Alliance in Iraqi National Assembly. He has recently retired from political and party-related activities.

Sa'adi Ahmed Pira was born in 1951 in Makhmur, a town near Erbil. He was young when he began his political activities. Like many other politically active Kurds he became homeless after the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq and immigrated to Iran. In 1975 he became a member of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. He then went to Austria as a political refugee and was recognized as a citizen and began studying civil engineering. He then gave up on his studies and returned to Iraq. He got elected as a representative during the first parliamentary cycle of Kurdistan, and became the minister of agriculture a year later. He was later elected as a member of the political council of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and consequently represented Patriotic Union of Kurdistanin in social democratic internationalist parties. He is currently a member of the political bureau and head of foreign relations office of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Zana rostayi was born in 1969 in Rust town of Balakati region. He studied law in Salahaddin University-Erbil. in 1991, he became a member of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan Party and, after the Islamic Kurdistan Group was founded, he was elected as a leading member of this party. He got elected as a parliamentary representative in the second parliamentary cycle of Kurdistan parliament and was active in the law commission of the parliament for a few cycles. He was elected in the third parliamentary cycle, too. He is currently a member of Kurdistan Parliament Representatives Union and editor in chief of the Parlamentar magazine. He pointed out the achievements and challenges of Kurdish regions in Iraq, and maintained that the decision for the Iraqi Kurdistan Independence referendum was a mistake and compared it to swimming against the current.

Khalil Ibrahim Mohammad was born in 1966 in Dohuk town in Iraqi Kurdistan. He first studied Islamic Jurisprudence at university, and then completed his bachelor degree in law at Baghdad University, and his Master's degree in Islamic thought at Beirut International University. He is a member of several charity organizations. He founded Kurdistan Islamic Union (Yekgirtu) along with his like-minded friends and colleagues in 1994. He has also been a representative in Iraqi parliament. In the last congress of the party, he had the majority of votes for membership in the political bureau of Kurdistan Islamic Union. He determines thinking and behavioral characteristics of three Islamic parties in Iraqi Kurdistan. He says that because of the displacement of the votes, election manipulation, rigging of the election and extensive violation of law in 2018 election, we first made our official complaint, and then came to the conclusion of remaining resolute in the face of opposition and stand our ground and play no role in the cabinet formation. He believes that parties exercised their influence in parliamentary elections and committed electoral fraud. Therefore, the supervisory role of opposition parties needs to be enhanced so that they can play a more important and effective role in combating financial corruption. In Khalil Ibrahim's view, the distinctive attribute of both the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan Party and Kurdistan Islamic Union is that they have both put down the weapons and are politically active like other political parties.