The passing of Mustafa Barzani, and the grandeur of his struggle, remain for us an enduring call to continue our efforts until we attain all the rights of our people and our country

In the twentieth century, the Kurdish people witnessed many great leaders and pioneers of national uprisings. Among them, Mustafa Barzani—a charismatic figure, a standard-bearer, and an emblematic representative of his nation’s identity—played an exceptionally important role in leading the Kurdish liberation movement. Throughout Greater Kurdistan, in all four parts, he came to be regarded as a spiritual leader and a source of inspiration for national and patriotic life, firmly rooted in the hearts and collective consciousness of his people, where his legacy has endured.

At the same time, both regionally and internationally, he was recognized as a symbol and embodiment of Kurdish identity. His lifelong struggle did not end with the Barzan uprisings or his active role in the proclamation of the Republic of Kurdistan. His historic march with hundreds of comrades to the Soviet Union, his subsequent return to the homeland, and his leadership of the great September Revolution all stand as powerful testimony to his leadership. These milestones were decisive in bringing the Kurds and their cause onto the international stage, and they remain a proud record of a leader who devoted his entire life to securing freedom and sovereignty for his country and his people.

On 1 March 1979—a sorrowful and profoundly painful day in the history of the Kurdish nation and the struggle for the liberation of Kurdistan—the shining star of the era, the great national leader and guide, Mustafa Barzani, set in a distant land. His entire life had been devoted to serving the cause of struggle and sacrifice for his nation and his country. All who remember that day know how a dark canopy of grief spread over the hearts of every segment of Kurdish society. It was a day filled with pain, sorrow, and anguish for a people who, throughout the twentieth century, waged a hard and unrelenting struggle to attain the hard-won prize of freedom and independence—and whose supreme leader of that struggle, on that very day, departed from his homeland and his people.

Today, as we commemorate his memory, we are keenly aware that the achievements realized in Kurdistan are the fruits of the path charted by Mustafa Barzani, and by the peshmerga and comrades who stood beside him. On this day of remembrance, it is vital that we carry forward the same spirit of struggle that Mustafa Barzani and the peshmerga embodied for the people, and that we remain committed to the course they laid out as a blueprint for just struggle, equality, and the removal of oppression and injustice from a nation seeking to secure its legitimate rights—rights and aspirations that foster peace and equality and open the way to development, reconstruction, and a dignified shared life.

The passing of Mustafa Barzani, and the grandeur of his struggle, remain for us an enduring call to continue our efforts until we attain all the rights of our people and our country—rights expressed in sovereignty, independence, peace, progress, and prosperity.

Fazil Mirani Head of the Executive Committee of the Political Bureau