Bafel Talabani

Bafel Talabani (born 1973) is an Iraqi Kurdish politician and an emerging political figure and deal maker in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He is the older son of PUK leader Jalal Talabani and was considered very close to his father.

He started his career in his twenties becoming the head of PUK's intelligence agency, Zanyari. In early 2003, Bafel headed PUK's counter-terrorism unit and in 2004, his name was associated with a counterintelligence mission that resulted in the killing of Abdullah Qasre, the member of the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) political bureau. He was also behind his younger brother Qubad Talabani's emergence as a political figure with the latter becoming deputy prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Bafel came into prominence once again in the 2010s. In 2016, he headed PUK's decision-making body and accompanied PUK's delegation to Iran for talks. He is claimed to have had a decisive role in bringing back traditional PUK leaders as a strongman of the Talabani family. He is credited with de-escalating PUK tensions, restoring a joint leadership of PUK with Gorran [Change Movement] preparing a unified response to Masoud Barzani, President of Iraqi Kurdistan and strongman of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

In October 2017 Iraqi forces controlled Kirkuk province after intense fighting against Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Bafel Talabani ordered his military forces to withdraw from the region thus allowing the Iraqi Army and the Shia militia Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) to reestablish control of the region. This move by Bafel Talabani has been heavily criticized by other nationalist Kurdish forces as "betrayal" of the Kurdish struggle for independence. Talabani strongly denied the accusations. He rejected as "baseless" claims that this was part of a deal he had brokered with Baghdad and Tehran, arguing that his forces had indeed fought and lost soldiers but decided to withdraw because of too many losses among the ranks of Peshmergas. He blamed the loss of Kirkuk and oil-rich regions on the decision of the Kurdish leadership to go ahead with a referendum on independence, calling it a "colossal mistake" saying a US proposal to postpone the referendum by two years should have been accepted and would have avoided the current situation, in which Iraqi federal forces have taken back control of areas controlled by Kurds since 2014.

He is the son of Jalal Talabani, Secretary-General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Hero Ibrahim Ahmed. He is the older brother of Qubad Talabani. He is married to the daughter of Mala Bakhiyar, considered a mastermind of the PUK.

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