1961–1975

Barzani's revolt and the 1970 autonomy agreement

Mustafa Barzani's KDP fights Baghdad for autonomy, wins a landmark agreement in 1970, then collapses in 1975 when Iran and the US abandon it.

A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development — Wadie Jwaideh, Syracuse University Press (2006)
Historical Dictionary of the Kurds — Michael M. Gunter, Scarecrow Press (2011)

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Mustafa Barzani returned to Iraq from Soviet exile after the 1958 revolution, but relations with Baghdad soon broke down. In September 1961 fighting began, and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), founded in 1946, led an on-off guerrilla war for autonomy. The fighters called themselves peshmerga, “those who face death”.

A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
Historical Dictionary of the Kurds — Michael M. Gunter, Scarecrow Press (2011)

The movement was also split from early on, between Barzani’s tribal leadership and a more urban, left-leaning wing around Ibrahim Ahmad and Jalal Talabani.

A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development — Wadie Jwaideh, Syracuse University Press (2006)

On 11 March 1970 the Baath government signed an agreement with Barzani recognising Kurdish as an official language in Kurdish areas and promising autonomy within four years. It foundered on the question of which areas were Kurdish, above all oil-rich Kirkuk, and on Baghdad’s Arabisation of disputed districts.

A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
The Kurdish Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in Post-Gulf War Iraq — Denise Natali, Syracuse University Press (2010)

In 1974 Baghdad imposed its own, narrower autonomy law and war resumed, with Barzani now supplied by the Shah of Iran, quietly backed by the United States and Israel.

Then on 6 March 1975, in the Algiers Agreement, the Shah settled his border dispute with Iraq and cut off the Kurds overnight. The revolt collapsed, more than a hundred thousand Kurds fled to Iran, and Baghdad began razing villages along its borders.

A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds — John Bulloch and Harvey Morris, Viking (1992)

Barzani died in exile in the United States in 1979. In 1975 Talabani founded the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the KDP–PUK rivalry has shaped Iraqi Kurdish politics ever since.

A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
Historical Dictionary of the Kurds — Michael M. Gunter, Scarecrow Press (2011)

Why it matters today

Kurds

The 1970 agreement is still the reference point for Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, and the dispute over Kirkuk that sank it remains unresolved. The 1975 collapse after the Algiers deal is a textbook case of what Kurds mean by "no friends but the mountains".