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Jalal Talabani Jalal Talabani (born 1933) is a prominent Iraqi Kurdish politician, who was named the President of Iraq on April 6, 2005. As founder and secretary general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Iraqi Kurdish political parties, Talabani was a particulary prominent member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council, which was created following the United States's 2003 invasion of Iraq. Talabani was born in the village of Kelkan in Southern Kurdistan. He had joined the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) at the age of 14, and was elected to the party's central committee at the age of 18 in 1951. He entered law school in 1953 and graduated in 1959, after which he was conscripted into the Iraqi army. He was the head of the KDP politburo during the 1960s, and an emerging figure in Kurdish politics. He left the KDP in 1966 to create what he described as a more educated, democratic and less tribal political faction. This ultimatley led to the formation of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in 1975. At the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Talabani continued to lead the PUK and had international respect and recognition for being a leading member of the Iraqi opposition which had remained within the country during the rule of Saddam Hussien. He was appointed by the United States as a leading member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council and held the presidency during the month of November 2003. Following the Iraqi elections on 30 January, 2005 and the long period of wrangling which followed it, Talabani became the first democratically elected President of Iraq on April 6. Jalal Talabani Jalal Talabani Jalal Talabani
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