The party states that it combines "democratic values and social justice to form a system whereby everyone in Kurdistan can live on an equal basis with great emphasis given to rights of individuals and freedom of expression."

[7][9] In 1946, the leader of the Soviet-backed Republic of Mahabad, Qazi Muhammad, announced the formation of a "Kurdish Democratic Party" based in Iran, or Eastern Kurdistan.

The Soviet Union, then supporting the Kurdish national struggle against the monarchies of Iran and Iraq, instructed Mustafa Barzani to place himself under the authority of Qazi Muhammad.

Rizgari, the Kurdish section of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), was vehemently opposed to the idea, as it would fracture the purpose of pan-Kurdish unity and give legitimacy to the Iraq-Iran border that divided Kurdistan.

The 32 delegates elected a central committee with Hamza Abdullah as secretary-general, Shaykh Latif and Kaka Ziad Agha as vice-presidents, and Barzani as president-in-exile.

[12] Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, the KDP and the Kurdish members of the Iraqi Communist Party steadily increased their working relationship – in many cases fielding joint candidates.

[13] Indeed, in 1956, the antagonism between the Kurdish aghas and the KDP-ICP reached such a height that emissaries for the former contacted the British consul in Mosul requesting arms and finance to establish an "anti-Communist and independent Kurdistan" in northern Iraq.

However, Qasim was under much greater pressure from his deputy Abdul Salam Arif and other pan-Arab Nationalists – not least the Ba'ath – who wanted to take Iraq into the United Arab Republic (UAR).

Qasim had officially named him Chairman of the KDP (a position he held on paper since the party's founding), gave him one of Nuri as-Said's old residences in Baghdad, an automobile, and a "handsome monthly stipend" (salary).

Mulla Mustafa's triumphal visit to the city the previous October had resulted in bloodshed, but this time killings were carried out by Communist and Kurdish members of a group called the "Popular Resistance Force", who attacked shops and their owners.

But while each wanted to reduce the others' influence in the KDP, each also knew that the other was indispensable in securing the loyalty of their respective support-bases – the tribal villagers and nomads for Barzani, and the urban and educated for Ahmad/Talabani.

Qasim urged restraint, but Mulla Mustafa pressed on regardless, a much intertribal bloodletting followed, eventually taking such scalps as Ahmad Muhammad Agha, chief of the Zibaris.

[18] As a result of this and past violence in Mosul and Kirkuk, Qasim slowly began to distance himself from the Mulla Mustafa and the KDP, and in a 1960 speech publicly disparaged the Barzani clan.

Yet again, the Kurdish political scene was divided between the intelligentsia of Ibrahim Ahmad and Jalal Talabani who decried this complicity, and as they saw it, submission to Baghdad, and Mulla Mustafa who rallied the conservatives and tribal leaders to his side.

Although Ba'ath Party founder Michel Aflaq called for equal rights for all ethnic and religious minorities under Arab rule, in practice the new regime ultimately became more chauvinist than any before.

Nevertheless, Baghdad was growing apprehensive with regards to Iran's continued involvement in Kurdistan – including supplying sophisticated artillery to Mulla Mustafa – and its recent claim to sovereignty over Bahrain.

President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was trying to consolidate his power in Arab Iraq, especially against the communists, so he ordered his deputy Saddam Hussein to travel to Kurdistan to reach a peace agreement with the Kurds.

A truly democratic, federalist, and equitable 15-point agreement was reached, and the accord concluded with the statement "History will bear witness that you [the Kurds] did not have and never will have as sincere a brother and dependable an ally as the Arab people.

The most significant of these defections was that of Mulla Mustafa's eldest son, Ubayd Allah Barzani, who claimed that his father "does not want self-rule to be implemented even if he were given Kirkuk and all of its oil.

[33] Around this same time a section of the KDP (led by Hashim Aqrawi, Ahmad Muhammad Saeed al-Atrushi and Barzanis son Ubaidallah) split to join the Ba'ath-sponsored National Progressive Front.

Unable to continue receiving ammunition for its anti-air and anti-armor weaponry, Mulla Mustafa ordered the KDP to begin retreating to avoid repercussions from the Iraqi Army.

200,000 Kurdish refugees fled to Iran, and there were somewhere in the region of 20,000 casualties on each side[34] After its suppression of the armed resistance, the Ba'ath razed at least 1,400 villages to create a security belt along the Turkish and Iranian borders.

The power vacuum they left behind was thus filled by their ideological nemesis Jalal Talabani, who, together with his leftist supporters announced in Damascus the formation of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Despite the terrible hardships suffered by the Kurds as a whole, intra-Kurdish feuding did not cease following the 1974–1975 war, as KDP groups ambushed and killed PUK fighters on several occasions in 1976–1977.

In 1986 the KDP, PUK, KSP, and ICP announced a joint declaration calling for unity against the Ba'ath regime and in November Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani finally met to form an official alliance, in Tehran.

[39] The KDP and PUK received advanced weaponry from Iran, such as SAM-7 missiles, that allowed them for the first time in decades to capture and hold military centers and civilian territory from the Iraqi Army.

"[40] In the face of international and UN pressure, the United States, Britain, and France led Operation Provide Comfort and established the No-Fly Zones over what was to become the Kurdistan Regional Government.

[41] As the Iraqi Army re-took Kirkuk and the other southernmost Kurdish areas, while the American and European air forces prevented further encroachment, the KDP-PUK led Kurdistan Front was compelled to, once again, negotiate an autonomy deal with Saddam Hussein.

[citation needed] According to the Financial Times,[47] both the KDP and PUK became wealthy recipients of Iraq's oil money transferred to them in cash by Paul Bremer.

It was in the aftermath of the well documented barbaric chemical attacks against the Kurds and the Anfal operations by the Iraqi regime resulting in the annihilation of tens of thousands of helpless people, displacement and deportation of a similar number of innocent civilians with devastation of more than 4.500 Kurdish villages and townships.