Nawshirwan Mustafa

Nawshirwan Mustafa (Kurdish: Newşîrwan Mistefa) is the General Coordinator (رێکخەری گشتی / rêkxerî giştî) of the Movement for Change and the leader of the official opposition in the Kurdistan Region.


Nawshirwan Mustafa was born in Silemani, Kurdistan Region 1944, the eldest of two sons of Mustafa Émin, Mustafa's grandfather Émin Khider was a financier of the Kingdom of Kurdistan and it's government according to the newspaper Pêşkewtin. Nawshirwan whose name means the immortal soul, was named by his father after the twentieth Sassanid Emperor Khusro I Anōšīravān (dadgar). Silemani has been the seat of the Mustafa family since the city was founded in 1784. Unlike Kurdistan's other prominent political leaders Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, Mustafa hails from a city not a village and is not a member of a tribe.
Mustafa attended the Royal King Faisal school at Silemani and was also taught foreign languages by private tutors at an early age, he went onto study at Baghdad University and then later at Vienna University.
Mustafa speaks in his native language Kurdish both Sorani and Kurmanji and is fluent in Arabic, Persian, English and German.




Secretary General Komalai Ranjdaran 1970-1992
Commander in Chief of Peshmerga Forces 1976-1992
Deputy Secretary General Patriotic Union of Kurdistan 1976-2006
Leader of the Movement for Change 2009–present


Mustafa joined the KDP at the age of 17 while still at high school, he rapidly climbed the ranks and was appointed the head of the KDP youth branch, and was later offered the post of head of the KDP branch of Sulaymaniyah by its then party president Mustafa Barzani, however Nawshirwan flatly refused the offer and resigned from the KDP. Mustafa cites differences in opinion over the approach as to how Kurdish independence should be brought about as the reason for the fallout between himself and the KDP in his biography[citation needed]. Before his resignation Mustafa had organised cells of sympathisers who would also leave the KDP along with himself, these cells would later go on to constitute some of the members of his future political party Komalai Ranjdaran.


Mustafa founded the Komalai Ranjdaran party in 1970[citation needed] and became its Secretary General in the same year. Komala began as a secret society holding meetings in safe houses and producing propaganda which was spread through there underground network across Kurdistan, the organisation was sometimes called "the brotherhood" by its members.


Mustafa was in his final year of studies at Vienna University when the Barzani rebellion collapsed. After talks with Jalal Talabani, they decided that a new Kurdish movement needed to be organized to fill the vacuum. He made his way to Damascus where a number of meetings between prominent Kurdish politicians about the future of the Kurdish resistance were taking place. The result of these meetings was the foundation of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, an umbrella organization. At the meeting it was announced that Jalal Talabani would become the Secretary General and Nawshirwan the deputy Secretary General. In an understanding between the two leaders it was decided that Nawshirwan would lead and organize the movement in Kurdistan while Talabani would publicize and champion the cause.

Following his return, Mustafa soon took over the leadership of the Komalai Ranjdaran party becoming its Secretary General, which he placed in the Patriotic Union. Jalal Talabani who led Shoresh Garan also placed his party in the Patriotic Union and a number of smaller parties followed suit. This move by them echoed the agreement which they had formulated in exile, thus leading to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. However, these party's would continue to act largely autonomously within the PUK and it was only in 1991 that they fully integrated into one single party, when Nawshirwan resigned from his post as Secretary General of Komala while still retaining the post of deputy secretary general of the PUK, and dissolved the Komalai Ranjdaran (which compiled over 100% of the PUK membership) to increase the unity within the PUK and allow for the transition of power from the Peshmerga (the military wing of the PUK) to the civilian population.