Mula Mustafa Barzani, the legendary Kurdish leader was a KGB-agent, codenamed “RAIS“, and the Kurdish armed revolution started by Barzani Sep.11,1961 was in reality a KGB cover action to destabilize Western interests in the Middle East and put additional pressure on the Kassem government of Iraq.
Whoever dares to mention these facts publicly in Kurdistan, his fate will be surely unknown. The least punishment he may receive would be enforced disappearance or even murder by sophisticated means, and the whole story of KGB-Barzani ties will be dismissed as a reckless defamation by the ruling Barzani family. Unfortunately for Barzani family, these facts are not a creation of some individuals, but contents of KGB-documents became recently accessible for scholars and public, or found their way to the West with defected KGB-officers after the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are two main documentary sources on KGB-Barzani ties, this paper relies on. The first are the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which also contain the correspondence between KGB and the Central Committee. The most important documents mentioned here in this article goes back to 1961, the peak of the cold war.
And the second sources are the so called “Mitrokhin archives“, which were smuggled to the West by the defected KGB-officer Mitrokhin after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In addition to the KGB-archives, this paper also relies on the memoirs written by former KGB-officers, where references also being made to Barzani and the Kurdish conflict. Here are the memoirs of the former KGB-general Sudoplatov, who was the head of the “SMERSH“, a special department within the Soviet Security Services, responsible for special
operations broad, of great importance.
There are also some scholars who conducted valuable research on KGB history using publicly accessible KGB-archives. The most important research paper I was able to find in this connection was the research paper delivered by Vladislav M. Zubok, a visiting scholar of the National Security Archives in Washington D.C. This paper is accessible online under HYPERLINK:
The aim of the current paper on Barzani-KGB ties is simply the search for the truth in the public interest. The Barzani family has established a brutal and corrupt feudal political system in Iraqi-Kurdistan under the pretext that this family had led the Kurdish revolution. It is simply time to tell them the truth and remember them that the Kurds are freedom loving people and will never accept feudal rule. The Barzani family has misused the trust of Kurdish people and became increasingly an oligarchic family, the main aim of which is self-enrichment by illegal means and the monopoly of power by the members of this family. Murder, torture, abductions and intimidation are among the
main methods of the family to silence the opponents by of the family. But apparently, such methods do not work well anymore in the new Iraq. My own abduction by the Parastin, the secret service of the Barzani family Oct. 26, 2005 in Erbil-Kurdistan for publishing some articles criticising the corrupt rule of the Barzani family and my subsequent release under international pressure is a further evidence that the arbitrary powers of the family are decreasing.
The great international support for my case was based on the simple fact that the truth should not be silenced.
And therefore I see it as my duty to continue searching for the truth.Barzani and KGB, Old Relations After the collapse of the Kurdish republic of Mahabad Dec.1946, Mustafa Barsani made his way to the Soviet borders with several hundred of his men. After arriving in the Soviet Union he received a great attention by the Soviet leadership and Soviet security services, who wanted to use the Kurds for their own ends. The first period of Barzani life in the Soviet Union and his political activities would have probably remained secret without the memoirs of the KGB-general Pavel Sudolatov, who later became the head of the “SMERSH“. Sudoplatov writes that he had met Barzani for
the first time in Baku, shortly after the arrival of Barzani in the Soviet Union in 1947, with the aim to study the opportunities to use him to destabilize Western interests in the Middle East. Barzani and his men were to receive arms and military training in order to be sent back to Iraq for this purpose, writes Sudoplatov. Mula Mustafa Barzani must have been of extra ordinary importance for the Soviet leadership and Soviet security services, as he was cultivated by P. Sudoplatov, one of the most important figures within
the Soviet Secret Services. Sudoplatov mentions in his memoirs that he has been responsible for assassination of Trotsky on Stalin’s order and for Soviet atomic espionage, which led to the building of the Soviet atom bomb.
Charging Sudoplatov with negotiations with Mustafa Barzani is an evidence of the great expectation the Soviet leadership had from Barzani. But Sudoplatov was apparently not the only Soviet secret service officer to deal with Barzani. Sudoplatov mentions other officers, who succeeded him in dealing with Barzani. Sudoplatov meets Barzani for the second time in 1952 to negotiate with him on military training without mentioning any agreement reached among them. But Sudoplatov meets Barzani in 1953 in a military academy
in Moscow, where both of them, Sudopatov and Barzani undergo military training. Barzani was apparently being prepared for a special task abroad. Sudoplatov reveals in his memoirs that Barzani told him then that the ties between his family and Russia are hundred years old and that his family had appealed to Russia for help before and received arms and ammunition from Russia sixty times. There are indeed other confidential reports on a visit to Russia made by the Sheikh Abdul Salam, the Sheikh of Barzan before the First World War There are no further reports available to me about the Barzani Russian ties before the WWI.
The nature of relations between Mustafa Barzani and Soviet secret services during the period of 1947-1958 remains till now widely secret with the exception of the Sudoplatov memoirs. Also Mitrokhin archives and the publicly accessible KGB-archives make no mention of this period, but do deliver essential inform on the Barzani-KGB ties after 1958. From Mitrokhin archives we learn that the KGB has given Barzani the codename “RAIS“,
and both of the archives, the Mitrokhin archives and the KGB-archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU reveal the big secret behind the Kurdish September revolution of 1961 led by Mustafa Barsani. According to these archives, this revolution was in reality not a real revolution but one of cover actions of KGB to destabilize Western interests in the Middle East.
Shelepin, the KGB-chief in the 1960s, sent in 1961 a memorandum to Khrushchev containing plans “to cause uncertainty in government circles of the USA, England, Turkey, and Iran about the stability of their positions in the Middle and Near East.” He offered to use old KGB connections with the chairman of Democratic party of Kurdistan, Mulla Mustafa Barzani, “to activate the movement of the Kurdish population of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey
for creation of an independent Kurdistan that would include the provinces of
aforementioned countries.” Barzani was to be provided with necessary aid in arms and money. “Given propitious developments,” noted Shelepin with foresight, “it would become advisable to express the solidarity of Soviet people with this movement of the Kurds.”
“The movement for the creation of Kurdistan,” he predicted, “will evoke serious concern among Western powers and first of all in England regarding [their access to] oil in Iraq and Iran, and in the United States regarding its military bases in Turkey. All that will create also difficulties for [Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abdul Karim] KASSIM who has begun to conduct a pro-Western policy, especially in recent time.” Shelepin also proposed an initiative to entice Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, a Third World leader avidly courted by both East and West, into throwing his support behind the Kurds.
Shelepin suggested informing Nasser “through unofficial channels” that, in the event of a Kurdish victory, Moscow “might take a benign look at the integration of the non-Kurdish part of Iraqi territory with the UAR”–the United Arab Republic, a short-lived union of Egypt and Syria reflecting Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalism–“on the condition of NASSER’s support for the creation of an independent Kurdistan.” ( Shelepin to Khrushchev, 29 July
1961, in St.-191/75gc, 1 August 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 81, ll. 131-32) (see Zubok, 21).
When a Kurdish rebellion indeed broke out in Iraqi Kurdistan in September 1961, the KGB quickly responded with additional proposals to exploit the situation. KGB Deputy Chairman Peter Ivashutin proposed–“In accord with the decision of the CC CPSU…of 1 August 1961 on the implementation of measures favouring the distraction of the attention and forces of the USA and her allies from West Berlin, and in view of the armed uprisings of the Kurdish tribes that have begun in the North of Iraq”–to: 1) use the KGB to organize pro-Kurdish and anti-Kassim protests in India, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Guinea, and other countries; 2) have the KGB meet with Barzani to urge him to “seize the leadership of the Kurdish movements in his hands and to lead it along the democratic road,” and to advise him to “keep a low profile in the course of this activity so that the West did not have a pretext to blame the USSR in meddling into the internal affairs of Iraq”; and 3) assign the KGB to recruit and train a “special armed detachment (500-700 men)” drawn from Kurds living in the USSR in the event that Moscow might need to send Barzani “various military experts (Artillerymen, radio operators, demolition
squads, etc.)” to support the Kurdish uprising. ( P. Ivashutin to CC CPSU, 27 September 1961, St.-199/10c, 3 October 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 85, ll. 1-4). (see Zubok,21)What Ivashutin did not know, was the fact that the West already had information on Barzani special ties with the Soviet Union. The U.S. officials had noted with concern the possibility “that Barzani might be useful to Moscow.
In an October 1958 cable to the State Department three months after a military coup brought Kassim to power, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Waldemar J. Gallman, stated that “Communists also have potential for attack [on Iraqi Prime Minister Kassim-ed.] on another point through returned Kurdish leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani. He spent last eleven years in exile in Soviet Union. His appeal to majority of Iraqi Kurds is strong and his ability [to] disrupt stability almost endless. Thus we believe that today greatest potential threat to stability and even existence of Qassim’s [Kassim’s]
regime lies in hands of Communists.” See Gallman to Department of State, 14 October 1958, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Vol. XII (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1993), 344-46 (see Zubok, 21). So became the Kurdish conflict an instrument in the hands of Moscow to exercise pressure on successive Iraqi regimes.
According to Mitrokhin archives, the KGB sent Yevgeni Primakov, codenamed “MAKS“ to Iraq in the 1960s under the cover of a journalist. Yevgeni Primakov was to play later a leading role in the Kurdish question, especially in the conclusion of the autonomy agreement between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Iraqi regime March 1970. The
Baath regime has to accept the Soviet conditions in return for the mediation, since the Iraqi army was completely exhausted by fighting with the Kurds. Iraqi regime has to ease pressure on the Iraqi Communist Party and establish close ties with the Soviet Union.After the March agreement the Iraqi regime gained strength with Soviet support and began to obstruct the implementation of the March agreement. And the Soviet Union, having successfully used the Kurdish card to influence the Iraqi foreign policy, turned its back to the Kurds. Barzani in return moved closer to CIA, Mossad and Savakis. The Iraqi-Soviet honey moon lasted till the collapse of the Kurdish uprising after it was betrayed by the Western allies and Iran in 1975. After this date, the Iraqi regime resumed its oppressive politics towards the Iraqi Communist Party and began to come closer to the West. And the Soviet Union resumed its use for the Kurdish card.
Since that time the history has repeated itself several times and the Barzani family has often changed the fronts between, KGB, CIA and Mossad. The drama is continuing.
, August 23, 2006
