Many people in Iraq and across the globe only know Sirwan Barzani as an influential businessman in Iraq. Besides, he is known to be from a powerful family of Iraq Kurdistan which has great political influence in this Middle East country. However, this is just one member of the big family. There is more about the Barzani family that is not known by the public. Just stay with me in this exploration of who is Barzani.
About Barzani Family
Some of the prominent guys in the Barzani family include Sirwan Barzani, Nechirvan Barzani, and Masoud Barzani. Lets briefly look at their profile.
Masoud Barzani
Masoud Barzani was born on 6th August 1946 among the Kurdistan of Iran at Mahabad in Iran. His father, Masoud Barzani, was a leader of the KDP, Kurdistan Democratic Party, as the nationalist leader until 1979 where Sirwan Barzani took over the position. In this office, he was closely working with Idris Barzani who happens to be his brother.
The main goal of the Kurdistan Democratic Party was to fight the Iraqi government forces who were in Baghdad in the Iran-Iraq War. The Kurdish leadership during these days, they were exiled in Iran.
Masoud served as the President of Iraq’s Kurdistan region from June 2005 to November 2017. However, there was a great controversy because he was to quit the office by August 2015. By then, his Prime Minister was Nechirvan Barzani and Barham Salih. His vice president was Kosrat Rasul Ali. After leaving the office, he was succeeded by Nechirvan Barzani.
From the 1st April to 30th of 2004 Masoud was the President of Iraq’s Governing Council. The leader of the group was Paul Brener and was succeeded by Ezzedine Salim.
Nechirvan Barzani
He is another offspring of the Barzan family who was born on the 21st of September 1966. Nechiravan Idris Barzani happens to be the second president of the renowned Iraq Kurdish region.
He has served in several offices and positions including being a Vice President of KDP since the year 2010 and a Prime Minister of KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government for almost three years.
Since the year 2016, Nechirvan Barzani has been leading various strategic and quite innovative developments in various places in Kurdistan. He assumed the office of the President of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region on 10th June 2019 as an incumbent president who was preceded by Masoud Barzani.
His Prime Minister is Masrour Barzani and his Vice President Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa and Mustafa Said Qadir. He is married to Nabila Barzani and has 5 children together.
Sirwan Barzani
Now let’s look at this man who has recently hit various news headlines across the globe for his close allegations and association with the famous Iraq telecom firm, Korek. Sirwan Barzani was born on 11th March in 1970 and much renowned for his business acumen in Iraq Kurdish.
Sirwan Barzani was also a military commander who fought against the forces of Saddam Hussein. He is one of the members of the Barzani Kurds. Sirwan can be said to be the nephew of Nechirvan Barzani who is the current President of Iraq’s Kurdistan. In the Kurdish Peshmerga military force, he happens to be one of the renowned and famous generals that are below 50 years.
Sirwan Barzani Sagas with Korek Telecom, Orange and Agility
This mobile operator is based in Iraq and has a subscription base of 7 million customers and an estimated market value of more than $2 billion. He happens to be one of the stakeholders of the company who served as the managing director in the telecommunication company.
Many critic him of acquiring his wealth through nepotism. Kamal Chomani says that Sirwan Barzani became a billionaire through Kurdistan Regional Government. However, he ignored the allegations.
Orange and Agility formed a joint venture and invested 1 billion US Dollars in Korek Telecom as one of the shareholders with a 44% stake. However, after sometime, Korek broke the partnership. Besides, Sirwan went ahead and took a loan of $150 million from the IBL bank without involving Orange and Agility. The funds were channeled to Kotek and his pocket.
Later in the month of May 2019, Iraq regulator which many believe that Sirwan Barzani was behind it, stripped off Orange and Agility their stake position in Korek. This made Sirwan have a 75% stake in the company. This made Orange and Agility fold up their tents and move out of this Middle East country. They have also filed the case against the company.
