Massoud Barzani re-elected as Chairman of KDP

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: North Iraq‘s Kurdistan Region’s President, Massoud Barzani, has been re-elected as Chairman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), by the Party’s 13th Conference on Tuesday. The conference also witnessed the re-election of Nichervan Barzani as KDP‘s Deputy, according to the correspondent of IraqiNews.com news agency, who attended the conference. “The KDP‘s Conference members have re-elected Massoud Barzani as the Party’s Chairman, with a majority. Barzani had nominated his Deputy, Nichervan Barzani, to hold the same post as previously. Nichervan also won the Party’s majority vote. Barzani, in a speech after his re-election, said, “It has been a great honor to be elected as the Party’s Chairman, and a great honor for any member of this Party, because it represents sacrifice, self-sacrifice and resistance.” “It is to my rejoice that the Conference had been attended by young efficient cadres,” he said. “The issue of self-determination had been mentioned by all previous conferences of the Party, but chauvinists have exploited the issue this time as an opportunity to charge the issue, as if it had been a call for secession.” Barzani went on saying that self-determination, is “a right for all peoples,” and that “the Party (KDP) is trying to define the means to achieve that right.” “The Kurdistan Parliament decided in 2003 that the Kurdistan Region became a part of Iraq, addressing a message to all other components of the Iraqi people, Shiites, Sunnis and others that the Kurds were committed to live with a federal democratic Iraq, but they are not prepared to live under the umbrella of the chauvinists, in any day,” Massoud Barzani concluded. SKH/SR 31