Masoud Barzani

Masoud Barzani was born on 16 August 1946 into a Kurdish political lineage that would shape his path. In 1979, he took leadership of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a role he has held ever since. That decades-long grip on the KDP positioned him at the center of Kurdish autonomy efforts in northern Iraq. In 2005, he became President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, presiding over the semi-autonomous territory through years of sectarian conflict, the rise of ISIS, and ongoing disputes with Baghdad. He stepped down from the presidency in 2017, but his influence within Kurdish politics and the par…