Exactly today, 4 years ago

On the 3rd, of October 2017

Jalal Talabani,passed away in Berlin, Germany

Where he was seeking health care in a hospital

During his last years of life he suffered from the repercussions of a stroke

but that didn’t hinder him to vote one last time in April 2014

Mam Jalal (Mam means uncle in the Kurdish language) is born in 1933 in Kelkan, Erbil

By the age of 13, he had formed a secret student organization

aimed at fighting oppression of the Kurdish minority by the Iraqi government

He was forced into hiding to avoid arrest

In September 1961 Jalal Talabani was leading the Kurdish Revolution

for the rights of the Kurds in Iraq

was taking charge over Kirkuk and Slemani battle fronts and organized and led resistance

In 1975 Mam Jalal formed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

The PUK, one of the leading parties in Kurdistan Region

And continued being the advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy

in Iraq for more than 50 years

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003

the Americans entered Iraq and Talabani insisted that

the Kurdish leadership was being realistic in settling for semi-autonomy

within a new democratic Iraq

2 years later Talabani was appointed as Iraq’s interim president

after helping negotiating the transitional administrative law

And the interim constitution of Iraq

He was the first non-arab president of Iraq and stayed in that position for the next 9 years